Effects of High Intensity Circuit Training on Physical Fitness, Body Fat Percentage and Waist-Hip Ratio Among Sedentary Females of Sikandarabad

Globally, insufficient Physical Activity (PA) and sedentary life style is recognized as major causes of mortality among young and older adults. Approximately, 5 million deaths are attributed due to physical inactivity (PI), which contributes around 6% of global death. The recent evidence shows that 80 million individuals in Pakistan suffered with non-communicable diseases, due to PI that ultimately lead to sedentary behavior. Therefore, the clinical practitioners have been highlighting in improving the physical activity among young adults not only to prevent chronic disease but also to reduce the risk factors. Despite of the fact, a large number of young adults are PI where this proportion remains high among women. WHO reports that generally, PI is found to be more prevalent in women, due to workload of house chores and care giving role in influence of cultural expectations, especially in low socio economic status. Furthermore, several other factors including high cost of fitness programs, access to physical activity facilities, transportation and most importantly time barrier are the major cause of insufficient PA. Addressing the above barriers, different exercise training protocols have been developed to reduce weight in short span of time and then to maintain it. According to American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), High Intensity Circuit Training (HICT) is a circuit-style workout that uses individual body weight as a resistance therefore eliminating the need of expensive gym equipment such as dumbbells, barbells kettle bells and many more. In addition, HICT can be performed in any environment (at home, parks and in small place) as per the feasibility of the person. However, overweight and obese women are found to adhere easily with short bout of exercises (10 minutes) then same women with long duration of exercises. Therefore, the aim of this study is to provide cost effective and efficient exercise intervention that may not only reduce the disease burden but also motivate young sedentary females for group activity.