The Effect of Elementary Swimming Training on Vascular Cell Adhesion Molecule and Blood Pressure in Hypertensive Postmenopausal Women

Background & The vascular cell adhesion molecule (VCAM-1) appears through endothelia cells in prone areas of arthrosclerosis beside atherogenic plaques and causes the monocytes and lymphocytes attach to swelled vascular beds. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of the elementary swimming training on blood pressure and vascular cell adhesion molecule (VCAM-1) in hypertensive Postmenopausal women Thirty-four females (Vo2max=32. 86  0. 6، body fat= 28. 5  1. 3، and BMI=28. 9  10. 3 kg. m2) who volunteered for the study were divided into two groups randomly: control and experimental. The experimental group participated in the elementary swimming training for 8 weeks، 4 days per week. The programs of the swimming training included foot stroke of front crawl، foot stroke of back crawl، and back crawl swimming with the intensity of 60-75 % of maximum heart rate. The training duration was 50 minutes at the beginning of the program، which includes 15 minutes warm-up، 20 minutes of elementary swimming training، and 15 minutes of cool-down. From the second week of the program، 2 minutes were added to the training time consequently. Data analysis using independent and dependent t-tests showed that the elementary swimming training caused a significant decrease in the systolic blood pressure (p=0. 002)، and significant increase Vo2max (p=0. 001)، while there were no significant differences in VCAM-1 (p=0. 07)، diastolic blood pressure (p=0. 2)، LDL-c (p=0. 2) and HDL-c (p=0. 07). We conclude that elementary swimming training decreases the systolic blood pressure in hypertensive Postmenopausal women.