Effects of a 12-week Pilates on body composition, daily living fitness, and indices of lifestyle disease in obese elderly women

The study was designed to examine the effects of a 12-week Pilates on body composition, daily living fitness, and surrogate indices of lifestyle disease in obese elderly women. Twenty six obese elderly women were randomly assigned to one of two groups, i.e., Pilates training group (EX; n=13) and control group (CON; n=13). The participants in the EX completed Pilates training program 60 min/session, three sessions/wk for 12 weeks, whereas the participants in the CON were asked to maintain their normal life patterns during the same intervention period. Main results of the present study were as follows: 1) Body mass index and waist circumference decreased significantly in the EX. 2) Grip strength, sit to stand, and back stretch improved significantly in the EX. 3) Fasting plasma glucose and HOMA-IR decreased significantly in the EX. 4) Triglyceride and LDL-C decreased, and HDL-C increased significantly in the EX. 5) TC/HDL-C, TG/HDL-C, and LDL-C/HDL-C decreased significantly in the EX. 6) Systolic blood pressure and mean arterial pressure decreased significantly in the EX. Thus, it was concluded that the 12-week Pilates training would be beneficial for improvement of body composition, daily living fitness, and indices of lifestyle disease in obese elderly women.