The comparative evolution of functional cardiovascular adaptive changes in athlete and non-athlete students

Abstract

During physical effort the needs of oxygen and nutrients supplies of the tissues increase based to the intensity of the work performed. The changes that appear in the system represent adaptative reactions to the hemodynamic overloads in volume and pressure.
Cardio-vascular adjustment to effort implies modifications that appear in all the system’s components – heart, blood vessels and blood. The changes aimed at both quantitative and qualitative aspects, as well as morphological and functional aspects. The adaptation capacity of the human body belongs to the natural evolution and it is conditioned by the differences of the individual responses of the body to the stimuli induced by the physical effort.
One of the main problems of the functional cardiovascular diagnostics, for trained or untrained persons, is to define the functional disorders, induced by the autonomic nervous system adjustments, from the organic disorders.
The hypotheses from which we departed in this research were that the organized and systematic practice of physical effort determines improvement of the neuro-functional cardiovascular response, and thus, the improvement of the individual’s health. The dimensions of the functional adaptations depend on the level of demand to which the body is subjected, meaning the duration and the intensity of the effort. Research took place at the National University of Physical Education and Sports between 2012-2014 on two batches of students belonging to the Physical Education and Physical Therapy Faculties. The two batches were made up of 50 students, 25 girls and 25 boys from the structure of one full cycle and were studied annually in the first and second year of study. The tests used to assess the response of the cardiovascular system were the clino-orthostatic reflex and Schellong test.
As a conclusion the hypotheses was confirmed, the evolution of the average values of the pulse and blood pressure during the changes in body position was improved, more obvious for the first batch (physical education), especially in the second year.

Key words:

cardiovascular adaptation, clino-orthostatic reflex, heart rate, arterial pressure