Physiological Adaptations Following Endurance Exercises after Stroke: Focus on the Plausible Role of High-Intensity Interval Training

The endurance training is considered as an integral part of stroke rehabilitation. However, medical institutions did not systematically include aerobic exercises because of the lack of scientific evidence. It is mainly the case for highintensity interval training (HIT) for which very few experiments were focused on after stroke. This review was designed to examine and compare the neurophysiological and physiological adaptations associated with two effective modalities of endurance training after stroke: the continuous low-intensity endurance training and the HIT. Based on the beneficial adaptations induced by HIT in healthy people and in patients with cardiovascular disorders, we postulate that this training modality might be involved in endurance program as complement or alternate of the traditional low intensity training in stroke patient. Therefore, including HIT in stroke rehabilitation may improve functional recovery by inducing rapid and significant beneficial physiological adaptations. Moreover, no clear recommendations were found on the appropriate timing for using HIT and other endurance training after stroke despite that the intervention timing is one of the major determinant of an effective recovery. The optimal time to initiate endurance program rehabilitation is thus discussed. Further studies are required to investigate the physiological adaptations to HIT compared to traditional endurance training as well as the combination of these two training modalities.