Effects of physical training on rat myocardium. An enzymatic and ultrastructural morphometric study.

Rats subjected to physical training through swimming increased their weight at a slower rate than controls, which initially had the same characteristics. The ratio heart weight/body weight was 23% greater in the trained rats. However, the absolute weights of the hearts were only 7% greater. The ultrastructural morphometric study, backed up by and analysis of the hierarchical variance, did not reveal significant changes neither in the myofibrillar and mitochondrial volume nor in the number of mitochondria per surface unit of myocardium. Furthermore, no variations were recorded, due to training, in the amount of mitochondrial protein nor in the specific mitochondrial activities of malate dehydrogenase, cytochrome c oxidase and ATPase. It is therefore suggested that the increase in the measured parameters, due to training, is proportional to the increase in weight and size of the heart. On the other hand, the specific activity of LDH increased by 15% after the first weeks of training.