The effects of the number of sessions of continuous and intermittent aerobic training in a week on markers of healthy heart in menopause Wistars rats

Background and The purpose of the present study was to determine the effects of three and five sessions of continuous and intermittent aerobic training in a week on some markers of healthy heart (high sensitive C- reactive protein [HS-CRP], LDL-C and HDL-C) in female Wistars rats of strain 14848. Eighty-eight rats weighting 325.6 ± 4.93 gram and 21.5 months old, with 3 months fertility period were prepared and divided randomly into three groups: Control, continuous and intermittent with 5 and 3 sessions of aerobic training in a week, and three subgroups including pre-test, mid-test and post-test. Continuous training protocol was performed during 12 weeks, 3 or 5 sessions a week, with progressive speed 12 to 23 meter per minute and duration of 10 to 122 minutes. Blood samples were drawn following 12-14 hrs fasting in three phases at the baseline level. With similar situations and HS-CRP and or LDL-C and HDL-C were measured via immunoturbidimetric assay and enzymatic method, respectively. Data were analyzed using ANOVA considering P£ 0.05 as significance level. The results showed that HS-CRP levels in control group increased significantly in the 6- and 12-week period. However, in both continuous and intermittence aerobic training groups, insignificant decrease was seen in the first 6 weeks. In addition, assessment of the difference of HS-CRP, LDL-C and HDL-C among the groups showed that the difference was significant between the control and the 5 sessions continuous groups after 6 and 12 weeks. These findings suggest that although the effectiveness of 5 sessions of training in a week is generally more than continuous training, the duration of training is more important than the frequency of the training sessions per week to inhibit the inflammatory response.