LAUSR

The ability to perform activities of daily living (ADL) declines with advancing age (Stamm et al., 2016; Hortobágyi et al., 2003). Although the aetiology of age-related functional decline is complex, primary contributors include a loss of muscle mass and/or strength (Hairi et al., 2010), reduced postural balance (Horak et al., 1989) and declines in cardiorespiratory fitness (Buskirk and Hodgson, 1987), all of which are potentially reversible with exercise interventions. Although cycling (CYC) training facilitates muscle strength/power (Lovell et al., 2010; Macaluso et al., 2003) and cardiorespiratory fitness in older people (Oja et al., 2011), this type of exercise elicits relatively small benefits to balance and mobility performance among older adults (Buchner et al., 1997a; Buchner et al., 1997b). Considering that many daily activities require sustained arm work to a greater extent than leg work (Hellerstein, 1978), it seems reasonable to encourage healthy older adults to train the arms as well as the legs. Although CYC is more commonly studied and prescribed than upper-body exercise, this alternative exercise mode has many important practical applications. For example, it has been demonstrated that armcrank ergometry (ACE) is a well-tolerated alternative mode of exercise for improving walking distance in patients with peripheral arterial disease (Tew et al., 2009; Zwierska et al., 2005). However, the benefits of ACE training are not limited to individuals with clinical disease and appear to extend to otherwise healthy older adults. Pogliaghi et al. (2006) reported that ACE and CYC training elicited similar “crosstransfer” training effects (i.e. improved fitness effect of ACE resulted in functional improvements during CYC and vice versa) among healthy older males. These findings suggest that from an aerobic fitness perspective, ACE could be an effective alternative form of training for healthy older adults. However, the broader applicability of ACE training in alleviating functional consequences of ageing in otherwise healthy older adults, such as muscle strength, balance and mobility performance, is less clear. Indeed, ACE training has been shown to elicit improvements in walking ability and balance in stroke patients (Kaupp et al., 2018). These findings suggest potential for upper body exercise training to improve use of the both the arms and legs during every day activities. In the absence of a pertinent literature base examining the effects of ACE training on physical functional performance among healthy older people, the objective of this preliminary study was to test the efficacy of ACE training compared to a CYC training to combat functional performance indices among inactive older men and women. As the effects of CYC training have been previously demonstrated in older adults, and no study to date, has examined ACE training, we sought to use the CYC group as a form of control group. We also sought to determine the crosseffect of specific training induced cardiorespiratory adaptations to a different exercise modality (Pogliaghi et al., 2006). Based on the available literature, we hypothesised that ACE and CYC training would elicit favourable adaptations in balance and mobility performance. We additionally hypothesised that ACE and CYC training would elicit similar mode-specific and cross-transfer cardiorespiratory training adaptations.