Statistics
SECONDARY, INTERACTIONS
The trial protocol defined 13% change in V̇OData were analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics (Version 29; IBM, Armonk, New York, USA) and displayed using GraphPad Prism (Version 9; GraphPad Software Inc., California, USA). The Shapiro–Wilk test was used to analyze the sampling distribution. The evaluation was conducted on an intention-to-treat basis, and all randomized participants were included. Available data on participants with missing data were included under the “missing at random” assumption. Per-protocol analyses were conducted, including only participants in the IG who completed all study visits and who had engaged in at least 1.5 training sessions per week.To evaluate the primary and secondary end points, we applied mixed-effects models with repeated measurement structure (estimated using restricted maximum likelihood). In this model, the measured values (measured at baseline, 3-month, and 6-month follow-up) were treated as the dependent variable. As fixed effects, we have included the randomization arm and categorical time covariate in the model. Interactions were modeled for group and time (categorical). As random effect(s), we had an intercept for subjects. Within the mixed models, we estimated 95% confidence intervals (CI) and 