Background: Many sports require maximal strength and endurance performance. Concurrent strength and endurance training can lead to suboptimal training adaptations. However, how adaptations differ between males and females is currently unknown. Also, current training status may affect training adaptations. Objective: To assess sex-specific differences in adaptations in strength, power, muscle hypertrophy and maximal oxygen consumption (V ̇O2max) to concurrent strength and endurance training in healthy adults. Secondly, we investigated how training adaptations are influenced by strength and endurance training status. Methods: A systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted according to PRISMA guidelines, and a Cochrane risk of bias was evaluated. ISI Web of science, PubMed/MEDLINE and SPORTDiscus databases were searched using the following inclusion criteria: healthy adults aged 18-50 years, intervention period of ≥4 weeks, and outcome measures were defined as upper- and lower-body strength, power, hypertrophy and/or V ̇O2max. Meta-analysis was performed using a random-effects model and reported in standardized mean differences. Results: In total, 59 studies with 1,346 participants were included. Concurrent training showed blunted lower-body strength adaptations in males, but not in females (males: −0.43, CI95% [−0.64 to −0.22], females: 0.08 [−0.34 to 0.49], group difference: P=0.03). No sex differences were observed for changes in upper-body strength (P=0.67), power (P=0.37) or V ̇O2max (P=0.13). Data on muscle hypertrophy were insufficient to draw any conclusions. For training status, untrained but not trained or highly-trained endurance athletes displayed lower V ̇O2max gains with concurrent training (P=0.04). For other outcomes, no differences were found between untrained and trained individuals, both for strength and endurance training status. Conclusion: Concurrent training results in small interference for lower-body strength adaptations in males, but not in females. Untrained, but not trained or highly-trained endurance athletes demonstrated impaired improvements in V ̇O2max following concurrent training. More studies on females and highly strength- and endurance-trained athletes are warranted. (PROSPERO: CRD42022370894).
Concurrent training, resistance training, aerobic training, gender, V ̇O2max, maximal strength, power, muscle hypertrophy.
Can be accessed here: Concurrent Strength and Endurance Training: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis on the Impact of Sex and Training Status
The aim of this study was to assess sex-specific differences in adaptations to concurrent strength and endurance training for strength, power, muscle hypertrophy and V ̇O2max in healthy adults. Secondly, we investigated how adaptations to concurrent training depend on strength and endurance training status. Such a systematic review and meta-analysis not only provides more insight into the concurrent training effects of various populations, but also highlights which populations may be underrepresented in the concurrent training literature.
This project is a collaboration within the Department of Human Movement Sciences of the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and the Department of Cardiology of the Amsterdam Medical Center.
The main script is used to run the steps within the literature search, screening and further analysis used to obtain the results in this study. Note that the forest plots were obtained separately from the RevMan software. This script calls other subfunctions and scripts that are located within the scripts subdirectory.
Description: Perform literature search including automated tools and outlier detection for concurrent training review
Authors: Stephan van der Zwaard [s.vander.zwaard@vu.nl]
Date: 02-11-2022
Version: 1.0
R.version: 4.2.1 (2022-10-31)
Publication: Concurrent Strength and Endurance Training: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis on the Impact of Sex and Training Status
doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40279-023-01943-9
The RStudio project that is associated with the analysis of this publication.
The data subdirectory contains the records obtained from the literature search and the documentation from the literature screening according to eligibility criteria.
The scripts subdirectory contains the necessary code for performing the analysis. These are related to the literature search, literature screening, data extraction, data preprocessing, data visualization, results and sensitivity analyses.
The results subdirectory contains figures and tables associated with the publication. This folder also contains the supplemental file.