# High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) to Reduce Frailty and Enhance Resilience in Older Veterans

> **NIH VA I01** · KANSAS CITY VA MEDICAL CENTER · 2024 · —

## Abstract

Impact of Home-Based High Intensity Interval Training on Resilience in Older Veterans
 More than 30% of U.S. Veterans 65 years or older are frail, which is three-times higher than in
non-Veterans in the same age group. Frailty is defined as an increased susceptibility to stressors resulting
from age-related impairments in adaptive biological systems, leading to higher risk of adverse outcomes
including falls, disability, hospitalization, and mortality. Further, frailty prevalence increases with age,
affecting 50% of all adults 85 and over. Resilience, which is defined as the capacity to recover from
stress-induced disruptions to homeostasis, is critical to successful aging because it precedes frailty and
presents an opportunity to intervene on early health deficits, thus preventing aging-related decline in
health, function, and quality of life. Evidence-based therapies that enhance resilience in older adults are
limited and the complex biological and physiological mechanisms underlying resilience are not yet fully
understood. Consequently, Veterans seeking to boost their ability to recover from late-life stressors and
prevent frailty have few proven options. Our overarching aim is to characterize the complex factors
contributing to resilience and develop novel strategies that enhance resilience to boost healthspan in
older adults. Towards this end, our previous VA RR&D SPiRE Award allowed us to demonstrate the
feasibility of 12-weeks of high intensity interval training (HIIT) among older Veterans. We successfully
enrolled and retained older male and female Veterans and safely conducted individually tailored HIIT that
improved cardiorespiratory fitness, lower-body endurance, cognition, and quality of life. The purpose
of the proposed larger trial is to build upon our previous successes and develop and implement practical
HIIT regimens to reduce frailty and enhance resilience in older Veterans. We will conduct a randomized
controlled trial to ascertain the therapeutic benefits of 12-weeks of center- and home-based HIIT on
recovery and resilience among Veterans 60 years or older. We have identified a series of biomarkers of
resilience and are also seeking to examine key biological drivers of recovery at the molecular level. Our
proposed study will not only identify feasible methods to measure resilience in older Veterans but will
also assess the benefits of home-based HIIT on physical and cognitive performance, frailty, resilience,
and healthspan.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10754500
- **Project number:** 5I01RX003813-02
- **Recipient organization:** KANSAS CITY VA MEDICAL CENTER
- **Principal Investigator:** Bruce R. Troen
- **Activity code:** I01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** VA
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** —
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2023-01-01 → 2027-09-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10754500

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10754500, High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) to Reduce Frailty and Enhance Resilience in Older Veterans (5I01RX003813-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-06-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10754500. Licensed CC0.

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