Safety and improvement in exercise tolerance with interval training vs moderate-intensity continuous training in heart disease patient of very high cardiovascular risk

Objective: Evaluate safety and effects of training at moderate and high intensity intervals (MIIT, HIIT) compared to continu-ous moderate intensity training (MICT) in heart disease patient with very high cardiovascular risk (CVR). Method: Quasi -ex-perimental study of 81 patients in a cardiac rehabilitation (CR) program, after risk stratification, all patients presented at least 2 factors with high CVR. All patients were provided supervised concurrent training: aerobic: initially 2 weeks MICT. Subse-quently MICT group with same prescription, MIIT 3 intervals of 3 'to 70-80% FCR with active pause exercise of 3' to 60 a 70% FCR, HIIT 3 intervals of 3'a 80-90% FCR with active pause exercise of 3 '70 a 80% FCR, resistance training 3 weekly sessions isotonic exercises and 1 calisthenics and multidisciplinary intervention. Results: 81 patients assigned to: 61 MICT group, 13 MIIT and 7 HIIT, no significant differences were observed. Percentage gains were obtained in METs-load 45%, 60% and 86% (p = 0.17) and watts 51, 44 and 48 in MICT, MIIT, HIIT respectively (p = 0.54). Although there are no statis-tical significant intergroup differences if there is a greater improvement in MET-load in the HIIT group. There was no adverse outcome in any training. Conclusions: In very high cardiovascular risk heart disease patient, supervised interval training (MIIT/HIIT) is safe, with a tendency to greater improvement in exercise tolerance (METs-load) with HIIT compared to MICT.