Department of Health and Human Performance, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Madrid, Spain.
Phys Sportsmed. 2010 Dec;38(4):112-8. doi: 10.3810/psm.2010.12.1833.
We assessed the changes in cardiac morphology between elite endurance-trained runners (n = 42) and elite sprinters (n = 34) over a 5-year period. In addition, we studied the relationship between heart size and maximum oxygen consumption (VO2 max).
At the beginning of 5 consecutive seasons, all athletes underwent an incremental running test to determine VO2 max and a color-coded pulsed Doppler examination to determine baseline echocardiographic variables. We hypothesized that cardiac morphology had reached its upper limit in elite athletes, and showed only minor changes during 5 years of regular training.
Although all echocardiographic variables remained stable in nearly all sprinters studied, in the endurance runners (who presented higher cardiac cavity dimensions compared with sprinters), variations in heart morphology became evident from the third season, and were within established physiological limits.
Only 6 (17%) endurance runners and 3 (9%) sprinters showed a left ventricular internal diameter of > 60 mm (the threshold pathological value) at end diastole at some point during the observational period. Moreover, no statistically significant association was detected between changes in VO2 max and changes in heart size. After 5 years of intense training, the changes of the echocardiographic variables examined remained different between endurance runners and sprinters.
我们评估了精英耐力运动员（n=42）和精英短跑运动员（n=34）在 5 年内心脏形态的变化。此外，我们还研究了心脏大小与最大摄氧量（VO2 max）之间的关系。
在连续 5 个赛季开始时，所有运动员都进行了递增跑步测试以确定 VO2 max，并进行彩色脉冲多普勒检查以确定基线超声心动图变量。我们假设心脏形态在精英运动员中已经达到上限，并且在 5 年的常规训练中仅会发生微小变化。
尽管几乎所有短跑运动员的所有超声心动图变量都保持稳定，但在耐力运动员中（与短跑运动员相比，他们的心脏腔尺寸更高），从第三个赛季开始，心脏形态的变化变得明显，且在既定的生理范围内。
在观察期间的某个时候，只有 6 名（17%）耐力跑者和 3 名（9%）短跑运动员的左心室内径在舒张末期>60mm（病理性阈值）。此外，在 VO2 max 的变化与心脏大小的变化之间未检测到统计学上的显著相关性。经过 5 年的强化训练，所检查的超声心动图变量的变化在耐力跑者和短跑运动员之间仍然存在差异。
