AIM: To observe the effect of body building joint exercise on the flexibility of middle-aged and old people through the test of forward flexion in sitting and angle changes of shoulder. METHOD: (1) Eighty middle-aged and old people including 20 males and 60 females, who did morning exercise everyday in the Body-building Community of Xi'an were selected from August 1st to November 2nd 2003. All people were informed and agreed to the experiment. The male subjects aged 51 to 70 years were randomly divided into exercise group and control group with 10 in each group; 30 female subjects of 51 to 60 years and 30 of 61 to 70 years were randomly divided into exercise group and control group, respectively, with 15 in each group. The people in the exercise groups did general body-building exercise and body building joint exercise, which referred to body extension exercise involving the six joints like neck, shoulder, waist, hip, knee and ankle, and which consisted of eight segments including one for each joint plus warming-up and warming-down, seven days each week for 12 weeks. The control groups only did the general body-building exercise. (2) The flexibility quality was evaluated by testing the forward flexion in sitting and grasp distance in shoulder turning. The higher the values of flexion, the better the flexibility, which was opposite to the shoulder turning. RESULTS: All 80 subjects were involved in the result analysis. (1) Results of forward flexion: The values of the male exercise group, 51 to 60 years and 61 to 70 years female exercise groups were 7.2 +/- 3.6, 15.0 +/- 3.6, 10.52 +/- 3.36 cm, which were significantly higher than those before exercise (3.4 +/- 4.4, 12.9 +/- 2.7, 7.55 +/- 4.27 cm, p < 0.01); there were no obvious differences in the control group before and after exercise (p > 0.05). (2) Results of shoulder turning: The distances of the male exercise group, 51 to 60 years and 61 to 70 years female exercise groups were 67.20 +/- 5.87, 51.80 +/- 2.42, 60.81 +/- 4.30 cm, which were significantly lower than those before exercise (82.60 +/- 8.54, 60.10 +/- 3.84, 70.50 +/- 6.62 cm, p < 0.05 to 0.01); there were no obvious differences in the control group before and after exercise (p > 0.05). CONCLUSION: Body-building joint exercise could improve the flexibility of middle-aged and old people remarkably.

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