2.2. Participants
RECRUITMENT, DYSFUNCTION
Participant recruitment was carried out through newspaper and radio advertising. A preliminary sample was selected through an interview and clinical anamnesis. All participants completed health history and physical activity questionnaires and met the following inclusion criteria: female, >60 years, physically independent, free from cardiac or orthopedic dysfunction, not receiving hormonal replacement therapy, and not performing any regular physical exercise more than once a week over the six months preceding the onset of the current experiment. A diagnostic graded exercise test with a 12-lead electrocardiogram was conducted on the sample selected for this study. The exams were reviewed by a cardiologist, and they were released without restrictions to participate in this study. Participants of training groups who did not reach adherence ≥ 85% of training sessions were excluded from the analysis.A priori sample analysis revealed that to achieve an effect size = 0.5 for muscular strength with a power of 0.8 and an alpha error = 5%, a total of 42 participants would be necessary (14 for each group). Considering a drop-out rate of approximately 25%, we recruited 54 older women who were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: a control group that did not perform any exercise (CO