Abstract

All parts of the athletes heart are enlarged and its performance increases. Endurance athletes show the most enlarged hearts. Athletes heart can be observed in athletes of all ages including the young. However, it is rarer than generally assumed. To differentiate between physiological myocardial changes, the relationship between heart size and ergometric performance as well as the echocardiographically measured ratio between left ventricular (LV) myorcadial thickness and volume are useful; the latter remains unchanged, on the whole, in endurance- and strength-trained athletes. Concentric hypertrophy cannot be induced by strength training alone; additional factors, such as hypertension, aortic stenosis, cardiomyopathy or anabolic steriod use can play an important role. When corrected for body dimensions, non-endurance-trained, e.g. strength-trained athletes have standard heart sizes even if considerable time is devoted to training. Findings in healthy untrained persons with large body dimensions also indicate no significant difference between the increase of echocardiographic measures caused by training and that caused by growth. An LV myocardial thickness of 13mm is seldon exceeded even in the highly endurance-trained or anabolic drug-free strength trained athletes. Echocardiographic differentiation of cardiomyopathy can be difficult if an individual is highly trained and has large body dimensions. In such cases, LV end-diastolic diameter may be up to 66-70mm. Upper value of LV muscle mass is 170g/square-m. Verf.-Referat (gekuerzt)