Cardiac Adaptations to Sprinting

[RyanH]

@JohnG109

The common thinking amounst the cardiac community is that resistance training can result in Left Ventricular (LV) Hypertrophy, and that prolonged endurance training results in a larger LV cavity (due in some part from increased venous return), both of which can result in increased cardiac output.

A collegue of mine performs echocardiography for the British Olympic Association, and has found amoungst all the athletes he has scanned, those with the biggest hearts were rowers. He found there LV’s hearts were hypertrophied and had bigger cavities. This is probably explained by their cross training ie weights and prolonged endurance training.

That seems to concur with this:The Athlete’s Heart

I do cardiopulmonary testing and I’m fortunate enough to be able to have an echo just about anytime I want, but we don’t test very many athletes.