Effects Of Endurance Cycling Training With Electrical Muscle Stimulation Of Lower Limb On The Endothelial Function

For frail elderly, or subjects suffering from osteoarthritis, it is hard to perform the moderate-intensity-lower-limb endurance exercise for a long time. Electrical muscle stimulation (EMS) has a potential to improve arterial function as well as skeletal muscle volume/ function. PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to determine the effect of cycling training with EMS applied to the lower limb on brachial artery endothelial function (FMD). METHODS: Forty six healthy adult men were randomly assigned to either the cycling at 50%VO2max (C group; n = 15), cycling at low intensity (less than 50%VO2max) with EMS applied to the lower limb, which was equivalent to 50%VO2max of cycling (LC + EMS group; n = 14), or cycling at low intensity, which was 50%VO2max of cycling minus oxygen uptake of EMS (LC group; n = 17). The subjects were engaged in 20 min of cycling under each condition twice a week for 8 weeks. RESULTS: No significant differences were observed in the systolic/diastolic blood pressure and heart rate before and after each training. The FMD, however, increased significantly in the C group (8.4 ± 0.6% to 12.3 ± 1.0%, p < 0.05), LC + EMS group (8.0 ± 1.8% to 11.1 ± 1.0%, p < 0.05), and LC group (8.1 ± 0.6% to 8.8 ± 0.6%, p < 0.05) before and after each training session. After 8 weeks of training, the FMD in both C and LC + EMS groups was significantly higher than that in the LC group (p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: These results indicate that chronic low-intensity-endurance cycling with EMS applied to the lower limbs improves the vascular endothelial function more markedly than the low-intensity-cycling without EMS. JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 20K11361