This study examined the effects of exercise training on conservation of lean mass during moderate and severe dietary restriction in male Sprague-Dawley rats. Eight rats each (48 total) were assigned to one of three levels of dietary restriction (ad lib., AL; moderate, MR; severe, SR) and to one of two activity levels (cage-confined, CC; or treadmill exercised, E) for a 10-week period. Post-intervention, the AL-E (91 percent), MR-CC (84 percent), MR-E (86 percent), SR-CC (66 percent) and SR-E (68 percent) groups all weighed less than the AL-CC group (427 +/- 4.3 g). Exercise training resulted in conservation of lean mass (protein + water + ash) at the moderate but not severe levels of dietary restriction. Further examination showed that this was mostly water since no between-group differences existed at any given diet level for protein or ash mass. Exercise training did elicit conservation of left ventricular heart muscle mass at both the moderate and severe levels of dietary restriction. In contrast, gastrocnemius muscle mass was conserved or maintained only at the moderate dietary restriction level. Thus, the level of dietary restriction appears to affect the ability of exercise training to elicit conservation of both total lean mass and the mass of individual muscles during diet-induced body mass reduction.