106 THE PREVALENCE OF AORTIC ROOT DILATION IN HIGHLY TRAINED ATHLETES: 'THE BRITISH EXPERIENCE'

The athlete's heart: insights from echocardiography

The manifestations of the athlete's heart can create diagnostic challenges during an echocardiographic assessment. The classifications of the morphological and functional changes induced by sport participation are often beyond 'normal limits' making it imperative to identify any overlap between pathology and normal physiology. The phenotype of the athlete's heart is not exclusive to one chamber or function. Therefore, in this narrative review, we consider the effects of sporting discipline and training volume on the holistic athlete's heart, as well as demographic factors including ethnicity, body size, sex, and age.

Arterial adaptations in athletes of dynamic and static sports disciplines - a pilot study

BACKGROUND

Structural and functional arterial adaptations with regard to the type and level of training in young athletes are understudied. Our research aimed at evaluating them in two types of exercise (dynamic and static) and two levels of engagement (high and recreational).

METHODS

A total of 76 volunteers formed five groups. Group A included 17 high-level dynamic sports athletes 30·9 ± 6·4 years old, group B 14 recreational ones aged 28·7 ± 6·2 years, group C 15 high-level static sports athletes 26·4 ± 3·9 years old and group D 16 recreational ones, aged 25·8 ± 4·8 years. Fourteen sedentary men 30 ± 3·8 years old formed control group E. Structural indices of left cardiac chambers and thoracic aorta were echographically obtained, as well as common carotid intima-media thickness (cIMT). Furthermore, applanation tonometry was conducted, at rest and during a handgrip strength test, for the acquisition of central arterial pressure parameters, carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (cfPWV) and total arterial compliance (C_τ ).

RESULTS

No significant differences in structural arterial markers were observed. However, group A obtained the highest handgrip central systolic pressure values (13·1% compared to group D, P<0·05). Resting cfPWV was lower in group B by 13·8% (P<0·05) than C and by 16·7% (P<0·01) than E, whereas C_τ was higher in group Β by 33·3% than C (P<0·05) and by 40·9% than E (P<0·01).

CONCLUSION

Functional arterial exercise-induced adaptations become apparent at an early age, without being in conjunction with structural ones. Recreational dynamic exercise results in the most favourable arterial characteristics.