The present study aimed to compare the effect of 24 sessions of stretching exercises performed before resistance exercises versus resistance exercise sessions on the hemodynamic responses of sedentary individuals. Thirty volunteers (26.76±6.29 years old, 81.56±10.66 kg body weight, 1.74±0.07 m height, and 26.74 ±.82 kg/m2 body mass index) participated in this study. After performing the test and retest of 10 maximum repetitions (10RM), the volunteers were divided into 3 groups: a) stretching exercise + resistance exercise (SE+RE); b) resistance exercise (RE) and c) control group (CG). The RE was composed of 3 sets of 10 repetitions at 80% of 10RM with a 2-minute interval between sets of RE preceded or not by 3 sets of 30 seconds of SE. Blood pressure (BP) was assessed using an automatic oscillometric device at session 0, session 12 and session 24 of training. Systolic BP (SBP), diastolic BP (DBP), mean BP (MAP), heart rate (HR), double product (DP) and oxygen saturation (SpO2) were measured after 10 minutes of rest. Comparison between groups was performed by Kruskal Wallis test with Bonferroni correction and 5% significance (p < 0.05). DBP showed significant difference when comparing session 0 vs. session 24 (p = 0.006) for the RE protocol. MAP decreased significantly after session 24 for the RE protocol compared to the other protocols (p = 0.016) and difference between session 0 vs. session 24 (p = 0.022). Significant difference was found in SE + RE protocol (p = 0.029) compared to session 0 vs. session 24 GC. This study showed that RE improved the DBP and MAP response and that the combination of SE+RE improved the SpO2 response after 24 training sessions.
Keywords: stretching, strength training, cardiovascular system, blood pressure, heart rate