Changes in Blood Pressure, Body Composition, and Vo2max after 10 Weeks of High Intense Interval Training and Ginger Consumption in Overweight Women

Abstract

Background and Objectives: Hypertension is one of most common clinical disorder and there is a positive relationship among prevalence risk of cardiovascular diseases, overweight, and hypertension. This research aimed to investigate the effects of ginger supplement and high intensity interval training (HIIT) on blood pressure, VO2max, and body fat percentage in overweight women.   Methods: In this randomized placebo-controlled quasi-experimental study, according to research team facilities, 24 healthy overweight women (age range, 20-30 years), were divided into 3 groups of ginger (n=8), training+ginger (n=8), and training+placebo (n=8) and performed 10 weeks of HIIT (40m-maximal shuttle run) and daily consumed 3 g of ginger or placebo tablets. To test the hypothesis of the research, paired t-test, one-way ANOVA, and Tukey post-hoc tests, were used at the significance level of p<0.05.   Results: After 10 weeks, significant decrease was observed in systolic blood pressure in ginger+training (p=0.001) and ginger (p=0.001) groups, and a decrease was observed in diastolic blood pressure in ginger (p=0.01) group. Also, body fat percentage significantly decreased in ginger+training (p=0.01) compared to the ginger group, and VO2max significantly increased in training+ginger (p=0.000) and training+placebo (p=0.000) groups compared to the ginger group.   Conclusion: Based on the findings of this study, HIIT and ginger consumption can be a good strategy to improve systolic and diastolic blood pressures in women. Also, this kind of trainings is an effective approach in improving cardiorespiratory function and body composition in the population of overweight women.

Keywords

• resistance training
• blood pressure
• ginger