Exercise has been recognized as an extremely effective tool to improve human health—it can have a preventative and even therapeutic effect on non-communicable diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.

By promoting physical activity not only among athletes, but also among the general population, several non-communicable diseases can be prevented, eventually reducing the financial burden upon the health care system.

However, the exact changes that occur at a molecular level due to different types of exercise have not been explored thoroughly. One reason for this is that, traditionally, collecting molecular information (such as metabolite data) required invasive tissue or muscle biopsies, limiting the scale of studies that could be performed.

Now, in a study published in Sports Medicine—Open, Dr. Kayvan Khoramipour from Miguel de Cervantes European University, along with other co-authors, and Professor Katsuhiko Suzuki from the Faculty of Sport Sciences, Waseda University, Japan, introduce and review literature in two emerging fields that could advance our understanding of exercise physiology in humans.

These disciplines use “multi-omics” data, or data from multiple sets of biological molecules (such as proteins, metabolites, or even RNA). Prof. Suzuki and his colleagues have termed these fields as “resistomics” and “enduromics.”

The authors explain that enduromics and resistomics are fields that examine the molecular changes induced by endurance and resistance training, respectively. While endurance training is what we might refer to as aerobic exercise (that increases your breathing and heart rate), resistance training involves improving your muscle strength.

To better explain these two terms, Prof. Suzuki further elaborates that, “Enduromics and resistomics examine unique molecular adaptations to endurance and resistance training in a larger population, as opposed to the field of ‘sportomics,’ which focuses on molecular alterations in competitive athletes.”

More specifically, enduromics reveals the biological pathways involved in processes such as lipid metabolism, generation of new mitochondria, and aerobic efficiency, or your body’s ability to effectively use oxygen—all of which adapt and change in response to moderate-to-intense aerobic exercise.

On the other hand, resistomics specifically focuses on muscle hypertrophy or muscle growth, synthesis of new proteins, and neuromuscular adaptations in the body. These fields can identify the biomarkers and metabolic fingerprints, aiding in understanding how specific metabolic states differ between individuals.

Taken together, both resistomics and enduromics can give us a clear picture of the molecular adaptations that arise in different individuals in response to both resistance and endurance training.

Emphasizing the practical applications of enduromics and resistomics, Prof. Suzuki explains, “By utilizing molecular profiling, these disciplines pave the way for personalized exercise prescriptions, using molecular insights to tailor training to an individual.”

He adds that these personalized training plans can enhance fitness and rehabilitation while reducing injury risks for both athletes as well as the general population. The team also believes that by transitioning the focus from athletes to the general population, the collective health of society can be strengthened.

In the long term, Prof. Suzuki and his colleagues would like to discover molecular mechanisms underpinning adaptation to exercise, which could even prove helpful for disease prevention and treatment.