F. Landry

Ten pairs of monozygotic twins of both sexes were submitted to a 20-wk endurance-training program, four and five times per week, 40 min per session, at an average of 80% of the maximal heart rate reserve. Testing and training were performed on cycle ergometers. Maximal aerobic power (MAP in ml O2 X min-1 X kg-1) and ventilatory aerobic (VAT) and anaerobic (VANT) thresholds (ml O2 X min-1 X kg-1) were measured before and after the training program, as well as during the 7th and 14th week to adjust training to changes in maximal heart rate. Considering the 20 individuals as a group, training significantly (P less than or equal to 0.01) increased MAP (from 44 +/- 6 to 50 +/- 6), VAT (25 +/- 3 to 30 +/- 4), and VANT (36 +/- 5 to 42 +/- 6). Thus, MAP improved by 12% of the pre-test value, while mean changes in VAT and VANT reached 20% and 17%, respectively. There were, however, considerable interindividual differences in training gains as exemplified by a range of about 0% to 41% for MAP. Differences in the MAP response to training were not distributed randomly among the twin pairs. Thus, intraclass correlations computed with the amount of improvement in MAP (ml O2 X min-1 X kg-1) reached 0.74 (P less than 0.01) indicating that members of the same twin-pair yielded approximately the same response to training. The same coefficient reached 0.43 and 0.24 for VAT and VANT, respectively (P greater than 0.05). These results suggest that there are considerable individual differences in the adaptive capacity to short-term endurance training. Moreover, sensitivity of maximal aerobic power to such training is largely genotype-dependent.

BACKGROUND: This study was designed to determine the controlled effects of a short-term exercise rehabilitation program on patients with moderate-to-severe left ventricular dysfunction after a recent myocardial infarction. METHODS AND RESULTS: Thirty-nine male patients 51 +/- 8 years old with a large anterior myocardial infarction less than 10 weeks old were recruited for the study. The patients were randomly assigned to either one of two training or control groups on the basis of their resting ejection fraction: training, less than 30%; control, less than 30%; training, 31-50%; or control, 31-50%. Patients were evaluated for filling pressures, radionuclide ventriculography, heart volume, echocardiography, and work capacity. Patients who underwent training participated in an intensive 4-week in-hospital exercise program, whereas the control patients were restricted to a minimal activity program. Results indicated that there were no significant improvements in resting, submaximal, and maximal hemodynamic measurements as a result of the program. Mean work capacity and peak oxygen consumption improved significantly in the less-than-30% training group but was accompanied by a significant increase in mean pulmonary wedge pressure. Resting ejection fraction improved markedly in both less-than-30% training and control patients, but ejection fraction measures were not associated with work capacity. Training did not cause further deterioration in ventricular function. CONCLUSIONS: It was concluded that in the present study, exercise training had little or no effect on hemodynamic measurements and that the training effects achieved in patients with left ventricular dysfunction are most likely due to corrected impaired vasodilation, not necessarily to cardiac function. The importance of using a control group in this type of study and the wide interindividual variations in training responses are emphasized.

The purpose of this experiment was to investigate the individual differences and the specificity in the response of maximal aerobic power (MAP) and capacity (MAC) to a 20-week aerobic training program. Twenty-four subjects (25 +/- 4 years), ascertained as sedentary, including 13 women and 11 men, participated in this study. MAP was determined with a progressive maximal ergocycle test, while MAC was computed as the total work output accomplished during a 90-min maximal ergocycle test. A modified bicycle ergometer allowed the exact measurement of the distance and the load for the computation of the work performed during MAC. The aerobic training program enhanced mean MAP/kg and MAC/kg by 33% and 51%, respectively. Although MAP/kg response to training was similar in both sexes, there was a sex difference in the response of MAC/kg, men improving 50% more than women. Individual differences in the response to the standardized training program were considerable with training gains ranging from 5% to 88% for MAP/kg and from 16% to 97% for MAC/kg. Correlations between training increments in MAP/kg with those in MAC/kg were rather low ranging from 0.28 to 0.44. These results indicate that there is a sex difference in the trainability of aerobic capacity, but not of maximal aerobic power, under the same 20-week aerobic training program. Moreover, large individual differences in the response to similar aerobic training are observed in sedentary persons, suggesting that certain genotypes are more sensitive to training than others. Finally, there is a high level of specificity in the response to training of the power and of the capacity of the aerobic energy metabolism.

Abstract The reproducibility of the assessment of ventilatory thresholds was investigated in two test‐retest experiments, one performed on a cycle ergometer with 21 moderately active male subjects and the other on a treadmill with 20 well‐trained male subjects. The first (VT‐1) and the second (VT‐2) nonlinear increases in ventilation (V E) relative to O2 consumption were determined (a) by three independent evaluators coding separately (OIE), (b) as the mean of three independent evaluators (TIE) and (c) by two dependent evaluators (TDE). One of the evaluators repeated the assessment four months later (SELF). The VT‐1 and VT‐2 were also assessed from the graph of V E /VO2 relative to VO2 . Under the SELF condition VT‐1 and VT‐2 in ml O2 per kg min‐1 proved to be reliable measurements with intraclass correlations of 0.84 and 0.91 respectively. Independent evaluators were individually reliable assessors of VT‐1 and VT‐2, with the exception of VT‐1 in the treadmill group in terms of ml O2 per kg min‐1 with coefficient ranging from 0.71 to 0.94. Similar results were obtained under the TDE condition. The VT‐1 assessments in the treadmill group were generally less reproducible than VT‐2 and less reproducible than either VT‐1 or VT‐2 in the bicycle group. The VT‐1 and VT‐2 expressed as percentages of VO2 max were not reproducible measurements under the conditions of this study. It is concluded that the condition described as TDE offers the most advantageous procedure for the determination of VT‐1 and VT‐2.