Improvement of systolic and diastolic heart function after physical training in sedentary women

The present study examined the cardiac effects of football training and running for inactive pre‐menopausal women by standard echocardiography and tissue Doppler imaging. Thirty‐seven subjects were randomized to two training groups (football: FG; n=19; running; RG; n=18) training 1 h with equal average heart rates twice a week for 16 weeks and compared with a matched inactive control group (CG; n=10). During the training period, left ventricular end‐diastolic volume increased by 13% in FG and 11% in RG (P