Dissertation on the Relationship between Exercise Tolerance and Athletes’ Health Status

Sports is growing in popularity in Latvia and all over the world. Individuals with different health conditions, training regimes, and physical fitness levels participate in competitions, therefore, in order to maintain the health and quality of life of the population throughout their lifetime and to prevent increased risk to health and life associated with physical activity, in-depth preventive medical examinations should be provided for physically active people and athletes.

In this doctoral thesis, the exercise tolerance of physically active people and athletes and its conformity to the state of health and physical fitness was assessed by means of the cardiopulmonary exercise test method. The impact that the sports physician's recommendations with regards to individually appropriate physical exercise and therapeutic and preventive measures had on the results was evaluated.

The research was carried out in the certified medical institution Sporta laboratorija, which is the cooperation centre of the International Federation of Sports Medicine in Latvia. The study included 1,600 individuals aged 12-70 years (1,050 males, 550 females) who considered themselves as being healthy, engaged in high-dynamic and high-to-moderate-static exercise sports, and who participated in sports competitions.

The results of the study showed that athletes of both sexes who exercised more than 300 minutes per week had significantly higher exercise tolerance, cardiac chronotropic and inotropic capacity, respiratory system functionality, and physical performance than athletes with a training routine of less than 300 minutes of exercise per week. As they got older, physically active athletes exercised less frequently in sports organisations under the guidance of coaches or trainers, they trained less regularly and for a shorter time. For most athletes, the training routine was adequate for their health condition, but inadequate for the level of physical fitness, suggesting that general exercise recommendations may not be sufficient for individuals to choose an appropriate training routine at each sport level. Advice from a sports physician on individually tailored exercise improved individuals’ health status, adaptation to exercise, exercise tolerance, and work capacity. Athletes with a training regimen of ≥300 minutes of exercise per week, depending on sex, age and training routine, demonstrated higher aerobic capacity, anaerobic capacity and faster recovery after exercise.

The research led to the development of evaluation scales to assess general fitness index and cardiac function index in physically active athletes depending on age, sex and training regimen for use in sports medicine and other fields.

Sandra Rozenštoka defended her doctoral thesis 'The Relevance of Exercise Tolerance to Athletes Health' on 5 September 2022.
Further information

Doctoral thesis supervisor: Prof. Andrejs Ērglis (University of Latvia)

RSU dissertation database