Effect of maternal weight during pregnancy on offspring muscle strength response to resistance training in late adulthood

Purpose: Maternal obesity can unfavorably influence offspring body composition, muscle strength, and possibly muscle's adaptability to training, but the human studies are scarce. Therefore, we aimed to investigate the effect of maternal obesity on offspring muscle strength responses to resistance training intervention in elderly frail women.

Materials/methods: Recruited participants were elderly frail women offspring of lean/normal weight mothers (n = 19, mean body mass index (BMI): 22.8 kg/m², range: 19.9-24.5) or overweight/obese mothers (n = 16, mean BMI: 29.7 kg/m², range: 28.2-34.2). Information on maternal BMI immediately prior to delivery was collected from the birth registers. All women participated in a 4-month supervised progressive resistance training intervention three times a week for 60 min. Predicted 1-RM of abdominal crunch, hip abduction, leg curl, leg press, seated row, and total strength were measured at baseline and after each month of training.

Results: According to rANOVA, strength increased significantly in both groups (p for time <0.001), but no significant between the group difference were detected (p for time x group interaction > 0.072). On average, muscle strength of the women offspring of overweight/obese mothers tended to be lower than in women offspring of lean/normal weight mothers, but the only significant difference was found in leg curl (p = 0.006). No significant differences between the groups were found in relative strength changes from baseline to 4-months.

Conclusions: Muscle strength response to supervised resistance training is not modulated by maternal adiposity in late pregnancy in elderly frail female offspring.