Long-term participation in community group exercise improves lower extremity muscle strength and delays age-related declines in walking speed and physical function in older adults.

"Declarations Ethics approval and consent to participateThis study received approval from the Ethics Committee of the University of Hyogo (No.2019F21). This study was a retrospective cohort study with secondary data collected by Sumoto City. Permission to provide data for this study was obtained in accordance with Article 18 of the Sumoto City Information Disclosure Ordinance (Sumoto City Ordinance No. 17, 2006) and Article 38 of the Sumoto City Personal Information Protection Ordinance (Sumoto City Ordinance No. 18, 2006). Consent for publicationAll author approved the manuscript. Competing interestsNone of the authors have a conflict of interest. Competing interests None of the authors have a conflict of interest."

"Funding This work was supported by KAKENHI (Grant Number: 18 K10645, 21H03273)."