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Supramaximal Intensity Hypoxic Exercise and Vascular Function Assessment in Mice
Published on: March 15, 2019
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Sex differences in vascular adaptations to exercise training within different intensity domains
Letizia Rasica1,2, Erin Calaine Inglis1, Rogerio N Soares3
1Faculty of Kinesiology, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
Summary
High-intensity interval training (HIIT) significantly improves cardiorespiratory fitness and vascular adaptations. These improvements are influenced by exercise intensity and sex, with HIIT showing greater effects than moderate-intensity training.
Area of Science:
- Exercise Physiology
- Cardiovascular Adaptations
- Sports Science
Background:
- Cardiorespiratory fitness, measured by maximal oxygen consumption (V̇o2max), is crucial for predicting cardiovascular disease mortality.
- Endurance exercise training effectively enhances V̇o2max, with intensity playing a key role in adaptation.
- The influence of exercise intensity domains on vascular adaptations and potential sex differences remain largely unexplored.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how different exercise intensity domains impact hemodynamic and lower limb vascular adaptations.
- To determine if sex influences the relationship between exercise intensity, cardiorespiratory fitness, and vascular changes.
- To compare adaptations across moderate, heavy, severe (HIIT), and extreme (SIT) intensity domains.
Main Methods:
- Seventy healthy sedentary adults (35 females, 35 males) completed 6 weeks of endurance exercise training.
- Training was divided into five intensity domains: moderate (MOD), heavy (HVY1, HVY2), high-intensity interval training (HIIT), and sprint-interval training (SIT).
- Hemodynamic and vascular parameters, including V̇o2max, blood pressure, and femoral artery function, were assessed.
Main Results:
- High-intensity interval training (HIIT) induced greater improvements in resting hemodynamics and vascular conductance compared to moderate-intensity training.
- V̇o2max changes correlated with vascular conductance, femoral artery diameter, and reactive hyperemia, but negatively with flow-mediated dilation in females.
- Sex-specific associations between V̇o2max gains and peripheral vascular adaptations were more pronounced with HIIT.
Conclusions:
- Peripheral vascular adaptations contributing to cardiorespiratory fitness gains are significantly influenced by exercise intensity domain.
- Sex plays a critical role in modulating the relationship between exercise intensity, cardiorespiratory fitness, and vascular adaptations.
- HIIT appears to be a potent stimulus for both cardiorespiratory and vascular improvements, with sex-specific responses.
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