Determining the feasibility of encouraging adults aged 65 years and above to participate in resistance training using peers: A pilot study

The exercise program will be developed to meet the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines given there are no specific Australian guidelines. Those participating in the gymnasium exercise program will be led by an employee qualified to prescribe resistance training (RT) programs for older people and attend the gymnasium program twice a week for 6 weeks. Exercises will be conducted on resistance training equipment eg let pull down, leg extension etc. Each gymnasium program will be individualised to each participant, however they will all train at the same time in a group and meet and speak with their peer during this time. These sessions take between 1-1.5 hours and participants are encouraged to attend twice a week. Those participating at home will be provided with an individualised program prescribed by a physiotherapist (different person from the gymnasium program). They will undergo an assessment with the physiotherapist and then receive an individualised program tailored to their needs (type of exercises, weight used, etc will differ depending on the participants needs). They will receive hard copies of the exercises to undertake (given as a reminder) and a set of dumbbells, ankle weights and therabands of varying weights and strengths (this will be progressively increased over the 6 weeks). The physiotherapist will demonstrate/instruct each participant in the home program. Participants will be asked to complete the program twice a week for 6 weeks in their own time. The physiotherapist will return every 2 weeks to review the home participants and make adjustments as required (increase weight and/or introduce new exercises). Each session the participants complete by themselves is expected to take approximately 1 hour. The peers will contact them at times outside of their training. The peer training will be developed with the assistance of a Council of the Ageing Western Australia (COTAWA) employee (partner on the project) and an experienced peer leader (consumer representative on project team) who has been training older people to be peer leaders for a number of years. Both have extensive experience in developing and delivering peer training to older people and both also hold a Degree in Education. The peer training will be held for half a day, and will include the role of the peer, benefits of resistance training to older people, benefits of having a peer in other types of interventions e.g. falls prevention, motivational aspects of being a peer, active listening etc. Peers will be asked to contact the exercise participant at least once a week but after this it is optional as it is a pilot we want to determine how much communication the peers and exercises had. The peers at the gymnasium will welcome the exercise participant, chat with them during the work out and if they need any assistance with equipment that does not require the exercise physiologists' help they are encouraged to assist. The peers assisting the home exercise participants main goal is to motivate the exerciser and show empathy where required also (i.e. if home exerciser is sore from doing strength training for the first time they can empathise as they have probably already experienced this). The peers with the home exercise participants are not encouraged to talk about the exercises too much due to safety and technique issues and using different types of equipment to those in the gym. Individual peers have been assigned to both the gym and exercise group to explore the differences in being a peer in both settings. Peers will be assigned anywhere between 1 and 4 exercise participants dependent on what they feel they can handle, this will be explored in the post-testing interviews. Expectations prior to and after the training will be sought and feedback from the peer leaders at the completion of the six weeks will be collected via interview.