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Abstract
Obese individuals are at elevated risk for cardiometabolic disease partially driven by skeletal muscle atrophy and disuse. Devising a proper exercise regimen to improve skeletal muscle health and postprandial metabolism is warranted to reduce the risk of obesity-related diseases. Regular exercise targeting functional capacity plays a major role in preventing cardiometabolic disease. High-intensity functional training (HIFT) targets functional capacity and positively influences postprandial fat metabolism. The postprandial and exercising metabolic benefits of HIFT have not yet been fully elucidated. HIFT is not adequately represented in the current literature, specifically postprandial fat oxidation (Chapter 3) and lipemia (Chapter 4). Functional exercises performed in a high-intensity Tabata pattern enhance fasting and postprandial fat oxidation on the following day with minimal influence on blood triglycerides or glucose levels (Chapter 5). Nutritional goals are underlying factors that affect eating behaviors in non-competitive CrossFit® (CF) participants. It is imperative to consider sex, age, exercise habits, and nutritional goals when investigating and prescribing dietary outcomes (Chapter 6). Chronic CF participants exhibit higher cardiorespiratory fitness, lower body composition, greater exercising metabolic flexibility dependent on skeletal muscle mass, greater mitochondria oxidative capacity, and greater microvascular reactive hyperemia when compared to a sedentary cohort (Chapter 7). Non-traditional exercise modalities, like HIFT, show efficacy and effectiveness to improve body composition, cardiovascular fitness, postprandial metabolic responses, exercising metabolic responses, mitochondrial oxidative capacity, and vascular function.