Effect of warm-up on left ventricular response to sudden strenuous exercise

Sudden strenuous exercise (SSE) has been shown to produce ischemic electrocardiographic (ECG) responses, abnormalities of myocardial blood flow, and decreases in left ventricular ejection fraction. Prior exercise taken as warm-up has been shown to ameliorate the ECG and myocardial blood flow abnormalities induced by SSE. The purpose of this study was to determine whether warm-up would normalize the responses of the left ventricular ejection fraction to SSE. Twenty healthy male volunteers performed SSE (400-W bicycle exercise) either with (group A, n = 10) or without (group B, n = 10) warm-up. Ejection fraction was measured using first-pass radionuclide angiography under control conditions and during SSE. During SSE ejection fraction decreased from control values in both group A (70.5 +/- 6.3 to 64.8 +/- 8.2%) and group B (70.3 +/- 10.1 to 57.7 +/- 7.7%), although ejection fraction was significantly higher during SSE in group A. The results are consistent with the hypothesis that the abnormal responses to SSE are attributable to subendocardial ischemia secondary to a delay in autoregulation of myocardial blood flow. However, the decrease in ejection fraction during SSE even following warm-up suggests that the mechanism for the abnormal response to SSE is more complicated than previously hypothesized.