Cardiac Response to Exercise – The Athlete’s Heart

The heart has a unique capacity for adapting to altered loading conditions. With increased physical demands, the heart responds by increasing the volume rate of blood pumped around the body system via increasing stroke volume and heart rate. For the short-term, the heart can cope with the greater volume and/or pressure loads. However, when the overload is extended over time (e.g. due to exercise, hypertrophy of the heart, valvular regurgitations) then a altered resting heart rate occurs; and this physiological phenomenon is described in both human and equine athletes as the “Athlete’s heart”. The cardiovascular response to physical training includes factors related to the heart as well as the peripheral vascular system. In addition, there are both an acute cardiovascular responses as well as the prolonged adaptation to training, lasting more than weeks/months. This presentation will focus primarily on the structural and functional adaptive changes within the heart, due to prolonged physical training, and a potential link will be presented between cardiac hypertrophy and sudden death. […]