Clinical benefits of the addition of lower extremity low-intensity resistance muscle training to early aerobic endurance training intervention in patients with coronary artery disease: a randomized controlled trial.

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% VO(2peak), 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.