Impact of Lower Body Weight Support Treadmill on Cardiopulmonary Exercise Capacity and Trainability

University Medicine Greifswald

Status: Completed

Conditions: Healthy Volunteers

Treatments: Other: AlterG Anti-gravity treadmill

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT02951494

AlterG-Training-I Studie

Details and patient eligibility

About

The AlterG®-anti-gravity treadmill provides lower body weight support which enables individuals to exercise without feeling their full body weight. How this body weight support influences cardiovascular, respiratory, vascular and metabolic parameters is currently unclear. Further, whether body weight support influences the trainability in response to moderate continuous exercise is unknown. This investigation has two main goals. First, we explore the direct influence of lower body weight support on cardiometabolic parameters during maximal exercise testing. Second, we aim to compare changes in cardiorespiratory fitness in response to a structured exercise protocol using moderate intensity with and without lower body weight support.

Enrollment: 40 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 45 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• maximal oxygen consumption below age-sex specific standard

Exclusion criteria

• acute infection within the last four weeks
• anemia (males: Hb < 8.1 mmol/L; females Hb < 7.4 mmol/L)
• previous reports of myo-, endo, or pericarditis
• previous stroke or acute myocardial infarction
• heart failure (NYHA > 1)
• aortic valve stenosis
• congenital heart disease
• cardiomyopathy
• severe left ventricular hypertrophy
• cardiac arrythmias
• hypertension
• diabetes
• BMI > 35
• cancer
• pregnancy
• aneurysm of aorta or cerebral arteries

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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40 participants in 2 patient groups

AlterG Anti-gravity treadmill

Active Comparator group

Description:

cont. aerobic exercise training with lower body weight support

Treatment:

Other: AlterG Anti-gravity treadmill

Exercise without body weight support

No Intervention group

Description:

cont. aerobic exercise training without lower body weight support