Discussion
fractures
This study aimed to examine the effects of a 16-week of CT training protocol on postural control and gait performance in postmenopausal women. The 16 weeks of CT intervention improved gait performance in this cohort. In addition, postural sway increased in the C group but not the CT group. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to show the effects of CT on gait and postural control in postmenopausal women.
Postmenopausal women walked faster, with longer steps and with shorter double support time after the CT intervention. Conversely, post-menopausal women from the control group did not show any gait change. Dias et al. also observed an increase in gait speed in postmenopausal women after 12 weeks of 2 strength-training protocols (cluster-set and traditional inter-repetitions rest method).

Our results also showed that postmenopausal women decreased the double support duration after the CT training protocol compared with pretraining. A shorter double support duration during walking improves gait stability. Aragão-Santos et al. also found gait speed increase in postmenopausal women after element-based functional and task-specific-based functional training protocols but did not find improvements in gait stability.

The CT protocol did not impact the postural sway, although the C group increased their postural sway after 12 weeks without intervention. The center of pressure displacement ellipse area, under the normal base of support and eyes-open condition, showed that while women enrolled in the 16-week CT maintained the same ellipse area, women in the C group increased the ellipse area. Despite being characterized by large variability, a similar tendency (

We hypothesized that CT could improve muscle strength leading to better postural control performance.

Our study has limitations: the absence of lower limb muscle strength and body composition assessments. In addition, the functional test used in the present study can be enough toidentify an improvement in upper body strength; therefore, maybe a more specific test, such as the 1RM test, would have shown better benefits for upper body strength. Nevertheless, the present study contributes to the literature, since professionals who work with postmenopausal women should include combined aerobic and strength exercises that may improve gait speed and stability. Improvement in dynamic stability when walking can reduce the risk of falls, fractures,
