Background: Acute hemorheological responses to different types of aerobic exercises have never been compared in a single study in healthy people.
Objective: We aimed to compare acute effects of high intensity intermittent exercise (HIIE) and moderate intensity continuous exercise (MICE) on hemorheological parameters, in healthy young subjects.
Methods: A total of 34 sedentary young adults (12 males, 22 females) with a mean age of 20.0 ± 2.1 years were randomly assigned to HIIE, MICE or non-exercise groups. MICE exercised at the power corresponding to 50% of heart rate reserve (HRR) continuously for 25 min. HIIE exercised at the power corresponding to 100% of HRR for 30 s followed by 30 s rest for 25 min. The non-exercise group rested. Blood samples were collected before and after exercise and studied for blood count, whole blood viscosity (WBV), plasma viscosity (PV) and red blood cell (RBC) elongation at nine different shear stresses.
Results: WBV, PV, RBC elongation of MICE and HIIE groups were not found to be statistically different from each other or from the non-exercise group. Compared to the non-exercise group, there was a significant increase in white blood cell (WBC) and RBC counts in the MICE group.
Conclusions: Different types of aerobic exercises, namely MICE, HIIE are not different from each other in terms of hemorheological parameters immediately after exercise.
Keywords: Intermittent exercise; aerobic; blood rheology; continuous exercise; exercise; red blood cell deformability.