According to a new Swiss study post a heart attack any exercise can improve the blood flow but the benefits don't last if the exercise is not sustained. The report in the March issue of Circulation was based on the results of 209 heart attack survivors who enrolled in the program. The improvement in blood flow and other benefits were lost four weeks after they stopped exercising.

Dr. Margherita Vona, director of the Cardiac Rehabilitation Center at the Clinique Valmont-Genolier in Glion sur Montreux said, "The main goal of our study was to determine the impact of different types of exercise on vascular [blood vessel] function. The conclusion was that in our patients, after a heart attack, all types of exercise were useful for correcting vascular dysfunction, without any difference among aerobic, resistance or combined training."

The study divided the 209 heart attack survivors into four groups and randomly assigned them to a training program of aerobic training, resistance training, a combination of aerobic and resistance training, or no training at all. All the participants were given thorough medical check ups before they started the exercise program. The aerobic training group worked out for four weekly sessions which incorporated a 10-minute warm-up, 40 minutes of cycling on a stationary bike that increased the heart rate to 75 % of maximum and a 10-minute cool-down.

The resistance training group had four weekly sessions with weights and resistance bands, and they worked their upper and lower body. The workout sessions lasted 45 seconds to one minute, with recovery intervals of 15 to 30 seconds.

The resistance training program followed American Heart Association guidelines, Vona said. "Following the guidelines of the American Heart Association, all people can do resistance training,"

The third group did a combination with two weekly sessions of aerobic exercise and two sessions per week of resistance training. The fourth group was told by the researchers to avoid physical activity during the four week duration of the study.

At the study's conclusion the endothelial function was measured by flow-mediated dilation (FMD), the amount that blood vessels widen to increase blood flow. When it fails to perform efficiently, the risk of a blood clot that can block an artery and result in a heart attack increases.

The patients in the three groups that exercised showed similar improvements in "endothelial function" with the FMD more than doubled from 4 % to 10 % while the sedentary group showed no such improvement. However, the increase in FMD was lost a month after the regular exercise program ended "These data imply that good, long-term adherence to training programs is necessary to maintain vascular benefits on endothelial dysfunction," Vona said. "All types of exercise were useful," with similar results for each exercise type added Vona.

Dr. Johnny Lee, an assistant clinical professor of medicine at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City said, "Most of the time, we tell patients about aerobic exercises
-- running, jogging and swimming," he said. "We haven't thought that resistance exercise, lifting weights and the like, can have an equal benefit.

This shows that it does. That there was benefit from aerobic exercise was no surprise. What was a surprise was that resistance exercise gave equal benefit."

"If this applies to the sickest patients, that if you stop you are going to lose the benefit, it shows that continuing to exercise can only have a positive effect if you are a normal subject with no heart disease," Lee said.