How Does the Dose and Type of Exercise Impact Acute Cardiovascular Function in Healthy Individuals?

During aerobic exercise, the cardiovascular system is tasked with delivering oxygen to active skeletal muscle via muscle blood flow while regulating mean arterial blood pressure. The impact of aerobic exercise on acute cardiovascular function may be modulated by the dose and type of exercise. Acutely, dose is the product of exercise intensity and time, whereas exercise type may refer to common aerobic modalities like cycling, running, swimming, or rowing. Each modality is unique for its medium of completion as well as the implications on blood flow arising from the position of active muscle mass relative to heart level. The purpose of this review was to address how an acute exercise dose influences cardiovascular function between prominent aerobic exercise modalities in healthy individuals. Across all modalities, all doses may transiently reduce both left and right ventricular systolic and diastolic function as well as both macro- and microvascular function. However, accurately quantifying and comparing exercise dose across the literature is challenging due to methodologic differences in exercise prescription and the cardiovascular demands imposed by differing modalities of exercise. Furthermore, the potential confounding influence of cardiovascular drift alongside variations in age, the composition of cohorts with respect to biological sex, and timing of cardiovascular measures further complicates interpretation. Future work should focus on exercise intensity prescription according to modality-specific physiologic thresholds to provide comparable doses. This approach may serve to standardize the physiologic stimulus and allow for objective assessments to be compared with confidence.