Research

Hormonal

Combined resistance training (upper and lower body) produces significantly greater improvements in muscle-related hormonal markers (follistatin, follistatin/myostatin ratio, adiponectin) and inflammatory reduction (myostatin, CRP) compared to isolated upper or lower body training in overweight and obese men, primarily driven by higher total training volume.

If you are overweight or obese and want to maximize hormonal health and reduce inflammation through resistance training, prioritize a combined upper and lower body routine over isolating specific body parts. Perform this routine 3 times per week, progressively increasing the weight (from 50% to 80% of your one-rep max) over 12 weeks. This approach yields significantly better improvements in muscle-building hormones and inflammation reduction than training only your upper or lower body.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
Combined RT elicits the greatest increases in follistatin, follistatin/myostatin ratio, and adiponectin, and decreases in myostatin and CRP compared with other training groups in overweight and obese men.
N. Bagheri et al. · Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise · 2024

Why this rating

Randomized Controlled Trial with clear grouping, though the sample size (n=60) is modest and the population is specific (overweight/obese men).

Source

Effects of Resistance Training on Muscular Adaptations and Inflammatory Markers in Overweight and Obese Men

N. Bagheri et al. · Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise · 2024

DOI 10.1249/mss.0000000000003592

rct · n=60Cited 7×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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