ArticleFrontiers in psychology2026
The effects of cluster-set resistance training on mental health and sleep quality in sedentary young women: protocol for a randomized controlled trial.
Article in Frontiers in psychology, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Background: Mental health and sleep problems are highly prevalent among sedentary young women and substantially impair their well-being. Resistance training has shown promise in improving mental health and sleep outcomes. However, traditional set structures often induce high levels of fatigue and perceived exertion, which may reduce exercise tolerability and compromise sustained participation. By redistributing rest within sets, cluster-set resistance training may attenuate fatigue while preserving comparable training stimuli, thereby potentially enhancing benefits for mental health and sleep. Methods: This single-blind, parallel-group randomized controlled trial will recruit sedentary female college students. Participants will be randomly allocated (1:1:1) to (1) a non-exercising control group (CON), (2) traditional resistance training (TR), or (3) cluster-set resistance training (CS). The intervention will last 8 weeks (3 supervised sessions/week for TR and CS). Training exercises, weekly load progression, and total rest time per exercise will be identical between TR and CS; only set structure and the distribution of rest intervals will differ. Outcomes will be assessed at baseline, week 4, and week 8. The co-primary outcomes are DASS-21 total score and PSQI global score. Secondary outcomes include POMS total mood disturbance, actigraphy-derived sleep parameters, maximal dynamic strength, anthropometrics and body composition, and blood biomarkers (high-sensitivity C-reactive protein, cortisol, and serotonin). Discussion: This trial will evaluate whether TR and CS improve mental health and sleep compared with CON, and whether rest-redistribution cluster sets provide additional benefits over traditional set structures under comparable overall training stimuli. The findings may inform the design of future supervised resistance-training interventions and longer-term trials for sedentary young women. Clinical trial registration: This trial was registered at the China Clinical Trials Registration Center (www.chictr.org.cn), registration number is ChiCTR2500110077.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.