Clinical trial NCT06910085: Kettlebell-classroom Training
Official title: Kettlebell-classroom: Feasibility and Effect of a Daily Dose of Resistance Training in Primary School Children - a Control\ed Trial
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Child Development
Schools
Primary Health Care
Resistance Training
Muscle Strength
Feasibility Studies
Schools / Organization & Administration
Preventive Health Services
Keywords: Kettlebell Training
Daily school routine
Teacher involvement
Primary school
Physical education
Lead sponsor: University Hospital, Basel, Switzerland
Sponsor class: OTHER
First posted: 2025-04-04
Enrollment: 92
Sex: ALL
Minimum age (years): 6
Maximum age (years): 9
Standard ages: CHILD
Accepts healthy volunteers: yes
Allocation: NON_RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: PARALLEL
Primary purpose: PREVENTION

Brief summary: Physical fitness is a crucial health marker, predicting both cardiovascular and all-cause mortality. Muscular strength, an essential component of physical fitness, underpins physical and psychological well-being, particularly from childhood. Increasing sedentary behavior has led to rising obesity and cardiovascular disease rates in children, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the emergence of pediatric dynapenia. Muscular fitness positively affects body composition, bone health, psychological health, and academic performance, and is necessary for fundamental motor skills.

In Basel, a ten-year trend shows declining physical fitness and rising obesity among primary school children, especially those from lower socio-economic backgrounds with less access to sports. This presents an opportunity to promote physical activity in schools. The "Kettlebell Classroom" project aims to introduce daily, playful resistance training with kettlebells over seven weeks in various schools, focusing on culturally and socially less integrated children.

Evidence supports the benefits of resistance training (RT) for children, including increased joint stability, improved motor skills, reduced injury risks, and increased spontaneous physical activity. Despite WHO recommendations for muscle and bone-strengthening activities three times a week, these guidelines are often unmet. This project aims to demonstrate the effectiveness of short, intensive exercise sessions for children, with the goal of expanding the initiative across Basel to improve health outcomes for all children.

Detailed description: Study intervention The intervention emphasizes full-body exercises which are performed with the own body weight and kettlebells. On every weekday, the intervention classes will receive 15 min of supervised training over 7 weeks. This results in a total number of training sessions of 35 sessions. The movements and exercises in all phases are based on functional, multi-joint movements. The focus will be on age-appropriate whole-body strength and motor skill development. It will be designed with different, varying exercises, which can be individually tailored and adapted to the children's ability. Tailored to the group, the sessions will also include parts which engage social cooperation and teamwork, so that the children will experience a sense of competence, self-determination and enjoyment of exercise while enhancing motor skills and athletic ability.

Eligibility criteria: Inclusion Criteria:

* all of the selected second-graders who can participate in physical education lessons will be included in the study

Exclusion Criteria:

* Children with a medical certificate, that prohibits physical activity, will be excluded from performance testing and training intervention.

Primary outcomes:
measure: Maximal strength
timeFrame: seven week intervention
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Handgrip strength
timeFrame: seven week intervention
measure: sprint performance
timeFrame: seven week intervention
measure: jump performance
timeFrame: seven week intervention
measure: shuttle-run performance
timeFrame: seven week intervention
measure: balance performance
timeFrame: seven week intervention
measure: object control
timeFrame: seven week intervention
measure: blood pressure, body composition
timeFrame: seven week intervention
measure: side hop
timeFrame: seven week intervention
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Basel
country: Switzerland
facility: Department of Sport, Exercise and Health
state: Basellandschaft
Study officials:
References: