Impact of Short-Term Training Camp on Aortic Blood Pressure in Collegiate Endurance Runners.

Tsubasa Tomoto,Shigehiko Ogoh,Ai Hirasawa,Seiji Maeda,Tomoko Imai,Jun Sugawara

doi:10.3389/fphys.2018.00290

Abstract

To investigate the influence of short-term vigorous endurance training on aortic blood pressure (BP), pulse wave analysis was performed in 36 highly trained elite collegiate endurance runners before and after a 7-day intense training camp. Subjects participated three training sessions per day, which mainly consisted of long distance running and sprint training to reach the daily target distance of 26 km. After the camp, they were divided into two groups based on whether the target training was achieved. Aortic systolic BP, pulse pressure, and tension-time index (TTI, a surrogate index of the myocardial oxygen demand) were significantly elevated after the camp in the accomplished group but not in the unaccomplished group, whereas the brachial BP remained unchanged in both groups. The average daily training distance was significantly correlated with the changes in aortic systolic BP (r = 0.608, p = 0.0002), pulse pressure (r = 0.415, p = 0.016), and TTI (r = 0.438, p = 0.011). These results suggest that aortic BP is affected by a short-term vigorous training camp even in highly trained elite endurance athletes presumably due to a greater training volume compared to usual.

Highlights

There is a widely held notion that the central arterial pressure waveform is synthesized by the overlapped reflection waves returning from the periphery on the incident wave in phase; there are disparities between aortic and peripheral blood pressure (BP) waveforms (Nichols and McDonald, 2011)
Aortic systolic BP, pulse pressure, and tension-time index (TTI, a surrogate index of the myocardial oxygen demand) were significantly elevated after the camp in the accomplished group but not in the unaccomplished group, whereas the brachial BP remained unchanged in both groups
The average daily training distance was significantly correlated with the changes in aortic systolic BP, pulse pressure, and tension time index (TTI)

Summary

Introduction

There is a widely held notion that the central arterial pressure waveform is synthesized by the overlapped reflection waves returning from the periphery (mainly lower body) on the incident wave in phase; there are disparities between aortic and peripheral BP waveforms (Nichols and McDonald, 2011). Aortic BP is more strongly related to concentric left ventricular geometry than brachial BP (Roman et al, 2007). Systolic BP is strongly related to left ventricular hypertrophy, and pulse pressure is strongly related to vascular stiffening (Roman et al, 2007, 2010). The unfavorable effects of cardiovascular system including higher aortic stiffness and aortic BP have been confirmed among highly endurance-trained populations who participate in prolonged intense exercise events, especially marathons running (Scharhag et al, 2005; Vlachopoulos et al, 2010) and ultramarathons running (Knez et al, 2006; Burr et al, 2014) compared with age-matched physically active peers.

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