Dominique Hansen, Bert O. Eijnde, Machteld Roelants, Tom Broekmans, Jean-Luc Rummens, Karen Hensen, Annick Daniels, Monique Van Erum, Kim Bonné, Ilse Reyckers, Toon Alders, Jan Berger, Paul Dendale
DOI: 10.2340/16501977-0853

Objective: Muscle resistance training is often combined with aerobic endurance training during rehabilitation of patients with coronary artery disease. However, the clinical effects of additional lower-extremity low-intensity muscle resistance training during early rehabilitation (within the first month after coronary revascularization) in patients with coronary artery disease remain unclear.
Design: Prospective randomized controlled trial.
Subjects: Sixty patients with coronary artery disease.
Methods: Subjects were randomly assigned to early aerobic endurance training (n = 30) or combined aerobic endurance and resistance muscle training (n = 30). Subjects performed 18 (standard deviation 2) exercise sessions (at 65% VO2peak, for 40 mins/session). In resistance muscle training, additional low-intensity (12–20 repetition maximum) resistance muscle exercises were performed. The following parameters were evaluated: exercise capacity, body composition, blood lipid profile, glycaemic control, blood endothelial progenitor cell and cytokine content, and muscle performance.
Results: A total of 47 patients with coronary artery disease completed the intervention. Total body lean tissue mass tended to increase with greater magnitude (p = 0. 07), and blood high-density lipid cholesterol content increased with significantly greater magnitude in resistance muscle training (p < 0. 05), compared with aerobic endurance training. Maximal exercise capacity, ventilatory threshold, and muscle performance increased, and steady-state exercise respiratory exchange ratio, and adipose tissue mass reduced significantly (p < 0. 05), without differences between groups (p < 0. 05).
Conclusion: In early aerobic endurance training intervention in patients with coronary artery disease, additional low-intensity resistance muscle training contributes to a greater increase in blood high-density lipid cholesterol content, and tends to affect lean tissue mass.