Treinamento de força excêntrico em idosos: revisão acerca das adaptações fisiológicas agudas e crônicas Eccentric resistance training in elderly: review on the acute and chronic physiological adaptations

It is well established in the literature that musc le mass maintenance has an important role on functional capacity, health maintenance and indepen dence in elderly. Thus, the study of the mechanisms involved with the physiological process of aging ha ve been evidenced in the last three decades, which has stimulated the interests on the relationships of ex ercise with the improvement of life quality and hea lth of the elderly population. Apart from this, considerin g the decrease of the physiological function of the human muscle and other systems with aging, resistan ce training can be prescribed as preventive tool to the degenerative process associated with aging. Between the different forms of skeletal-muscle contraction , the training targeting eccentric actions has receiv ed considerable attention. In this sense, the prese nt study had the objective to present the acute and chronic effects of eccentric resistance training on cardiorespiratory, metabolic and neuromotor respons es in elderly. A bibliographic search using the following keywords was done: resistance training, m olecular mechanisms, hypertrophy, eccentric resistance training and aging, on the databases Pub Med, MEDLINE, SciELO and LILACS. The present review indicates that exercises targeting eccentric actions promote lower cardiorespiratory, metabolic , and neuromotor stress as compared with exercises of con centric and isometric muscle actions. For this reas on, eccentric resistance training becomes potentially a dequate for elderly, which have relative preservati on of eccentric force during aging, as well as risk for a nd/or cardiorespiratory and neuromotor diseases. Additionally, this type of training induces gains o f muscle mass and functional capacity in elderly.