Enhanced systolic myocardial function in elite endurance athletes during combined arm-and-leg exercise.
The aim here was to employ color tissue velocity imaging (TVI), to test the hypothesis that highly trained endurance athletes exhibit enhanced systolic function of the left ventricular (LV) myocardium both at rest and during combined arm-and-leg exercise in comparison with untrained subjects. For each of the ten elite male (EG) and ten matched control participants (CG), LV dimensions and systolic function were assessed at rest using echocardiography. Subsequently, these subjects exercised continuously on a combined arm-and-leg cycle ergometer for 3 min each at 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 and 100% of VO(2max). Oxygen uptake, heart rate, systolic blood pressure (SBP) and peak contraction systolic velocities of the LV myocardium (PSV) were recorded in the end of each level. At rest, the trained and untrained groups differed with respect to LV dimensions, but not systolic function. At 60-100% VO(2max), the EG group demonstrated both higher PSV and SBP. The observation that the EG athletes had higher PSV than CG during exercise at 60-100% VO(2max), but not at rest or at 50% of VO(2max), suggested an enhanced systolic capacity. This improvement is likely to be due to an enhanced inotropic contractility, which only becomes apparent during exercise.
Department of Health Sciences, Swedish Winter Sports Research Centre, Mid Sweden University, 831 25 Östersund, Sweden.
Lars
L
Carlsson
Britta
B
Lind
Marko S
MS
Laaksonen
Bo
B
Berglund
Lars-Åke
LÅ
Brodin
Hans-Christer
HC
Holmberg
D000328:Adult; D001132:Arm / Q000502:physiology; D056352:Athletes; D015444:Exercise / Q000502:physiology*; D006321:Heart / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D007866:Leg / Q000502:physiology; D008297:Male; D010806:Physical Education and Training / Q000379:methods; D010807:Physical Endurance / Q000502:physiology; D013177:Sports / Q000502:physiology; D013599:Systole; D015854:Up-Regulation; D016277:Ventricular Function, Left / Q000502:physiology; D055815:Young Adult