Two previous randomized controlled trials (RCTs) from our group have demonstrated promising therapeutic effects of lower-body resistance exercise training (RET), and, progressive, fully-body, moderate-to-high-intensity, World Health Organization and American College of Sports Medicine guidelines-based RET (PRET), compared to waitlist controls on signs and symptoms of Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD). Although past findings were promising, waitlists cannot control for potential social and psychological benefits of intervention engagement, including social contact, expectations of benefit, and mastery experiences. The current, novel RCTs replicated the previous PRET design, and expanded on this series of RCTs by (1) more rigorously examining the acute and chronic effects of PRET compared to an active low-intensity sham RET attention-control (SHAM); (2) examining a potentially minimal effective dose threshold for meaningful improvement; (3) examining persistence of improvements post-intervention; (4) focusing explicitly on at-risk, under-researched young adult women with subclinical, or analogue, GAD (AGAD); and (5) more robustly examining RET effects on other factors in the GAD symptom profile, such as rumination, cognitive function, and heart rate variability. The inclusion of a rigorous active comparison group is a critical advance to the RET for GAD literature, which also moves this research closer to clinical equipoise, such that all participants have opportunity for benefit. The focus on young adult women, and examinations of a minimal dose threshold for meaningful improvement, are also critical advances, as women are generally less involved in RET, and therefore have greater potential for improvement, and, a potential minimal beneficial dose may reduce barriers for engagement. The methodology will also provide a framework for rigorously-controlled future research, and the findings will inform expansions and novel directions, such as examinations among samples with clinical disorders, and further examinations of the dose-response, and longer-term persistence of benefits post intervention.
O’Sullivan D, Rice JM, Lyons M, Herring MP. Acute and chronic effects of guidelines-based progressive resistance exercise training compared to a low-intensity sham attention-control on signs and symptoms among young adult women with analogue Generalized Anxiety Disorder: design and methods of a randomized controlled trial. Psychol Sport Exerc. 2025;80:102902. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psychsport.2025.102902.
Darragh O’Sullivan is a final year, IRC-funded PhD Research Student conducting meta-analytic and experimental investigations of resistance exercise training effects on anxiety and depressive symptoms.
Contact: Darragh.OSullivan@ul.ie X: @Darragh_Sully LinkedIn: darraghsully
Jennifer Rice is a PhD student in the Department of Physical Education and Sport Sciences at the University of Limerick.
Contact: Jennifer.rice@ul.ie. X: @JenniferMayRice LinkedIn, Researchgate, ORCID: 0000-0002-5610-1156
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