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Updated: Jun 23, 2025
Conducting Maximal and Submaximal Endurance Exercise Testing to Measure Physiological and Biological Responses to Acute Exercise in Humans
Published on: October 17, 2018
Cardiovascular adaptive response to training in elite athletes. Comparison between endurance and non-endurance
Enrique O Prada1, Luis A Morita1,2, Aldo F Longo1
1Centro Nacional de Alto Rendimiento Deportivo (CeNARD), Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Introduction:
The different structural modifications that have been described in the heart of the high-performance athlete depend on factors such as age, gender, type of sport, and the intensity and time dedicated to training.
Objectives:
Evaluation of elite athletes through echocardiography for the description of cardiac structure and function, and the comparison between athletes with cardiorespiratory endurance and the rest of the athletes.
Methods:
We performed the echocardiographic examination in 224 elite athletes, 96 women and 128 men aged 15 to 38 years (21.7 ± 5.3 years) and they were divided into 2 groups: "Endurance Group" (cardiorespiratory endurance) and "Non-Endurance Group" which included the rest of the sports. Univariate comparison between the two groups was performed by measuring 14 echocardiographic variables.
Results:
In men, statistically significant higher values were identified in the endurance group for interventricular septum, left ventricular posterior wall, relative wall thickness (RWT), left ventricular mass index and left atrial dimension. In women, the endurance group had significantly lower heart rate values, and significantly higher left ventricular diastolic dimension with normal RWT.
Conclusions:
Most of the echocardiographic variables showed higher sample means in the endurance athletes. In the subgroup of men from the Endurance Group, eccentric hypertrophy prevailed with a greater increase in wall thickness, as well as in the diameter of the left atrium, while in women the variables indicated eccentric hypertrophy at the expense of an increase in left ventricle diameter, without increased wall thickness.
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