THE ARISING · Longevity & Healthspan
Elastic Band Training Improved Strength and Gait in Older Women at Risk of Sarcopenia, Small Trial Finds
After 12 weeks of resistance training with elastic bands, older women at risk of age-related muscle loss walked with longer strides and spent less time with both feet on the ground.
That is the finding of a randomized controlled trial published in BMC Geriatrics in 2026. A randomized trial is the strongest design for testing whether an intervention works, but this one is small. It enrolled 40 women with a mean age of 76.4 years (± 5.8). All were at risk of sarcopenia, the gradual loss of muscle mass and strength with age. Risk was defined as a score of 120 or higher on the Ishii score, a screening tool.
The women were randomly assigned to one of two groups. The control group received health education. The training group received health education plus 12 weeks of elastic band resistance training. The researchers measured muscle strength, physical function, gait, muscle and heart structure, and brain-muscle signaling at the start and after 12 weeks.
According to the authors, training significantly improved muscle strength and physical function. It also lowered the Ishii score, meaning lower estimated sarcopenia risk. Stride length increased and double-support time, the part of each step when both feet touch the ground, fell. Shorter double-support time is generally read as steadier walking.
Ultrasound scans showed thicker biceps muscles and a larger cross-sectional area in the rectus femoris, a thigh muscle. The angle of that muscle's fibers, called the pennation angle, also increased. The scans also showed a thicker wall between the heart's two lower chambers. Two heart measures rose too: left ventricular ejection fraction, a gauge of how much blood the main pumping chamber ejects with each beat, and the E/A ratio, a gauge of how the heart fills.
The team also measured corticomuscular coherence. This describes how closely electrical activity in the brain's motor areas lines up with activity in a working muscle. After statistical correction for multiple comparisons, coherence in the β band rose for two thigh muscles, the vastus lateralis and the biceps femoris.
The authors were careful about what this means. They began by asking whether training affects a connected heart-brain-muscle network. Their conclusion was more limited: the results suggest parallel adaptations, not direct proof of integrated regulation across that network. The heart and brain-signal changes are best read as things that changed alongside the muscle gains, not as a shown chain of cause and effect.
The evidence has clear limits. The sample was just 40 women, so the results may not apply to men or to other groups. The trial lasted 12 weeks and says nothing about longer-term outcomes such as falls.
The result fits a larger body of evidence. A 2026 systematic review and meta-analysis in European Review of Aging and Physical Activity pooled 25 randomized trials with 1,302 older adults with sarcopenia. It found significant improvements from resistance training in muscle strength, lean mass, walking ability and grip strength. Those trials used a range of equipment, including elastic bands.
According to the journal page, the study was funded by the National Social Fund of China, and the authors declared no competing interests.
What to watch next
Larger and longer trials that report falls and everyday function, and work that tests whether the heart and brain-signal changes are linked to the muscle gains or simply occur beside them.