Exercise as cardiovascular medicine: An update of the direct impacts of exercise on the heart and arteries

Abstract

In this talk I will focus on presenting recent evidence pertaining to the physiological and health benefits of exercise on the heart and arteries of humans. Concepts pertaining to the impact of exercise training on the human heart have been dominated since the 1970s by the “Morganroth hypothesis”, the idea that the form of cardiac loading associated with different exercise modalities induces differential cardiac morphological adaptations. Hence resistance or power training induces “concentric” remodeling as an adaptive response to repetitive afterlod burden, whereas endurance training induces eccentric remodeling in response to repeated increases in preload.