Tests backward pedaling exercise in adults with left heart failure

Trial details

Who runs it

University of Zurich

Trial code

NCT05204693

Record updated

13 June 2025

Original description

Eccentric muscle work is defined as lengthening of a muscle while applying force. It was shown that with eccentric work, muscles are able to perform four times as much power compared to usual concentric work, which results in huge training gain with a highly decreased oxygen demand and thus lower cardiovascular load. Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is a chronic condition associated with significant reduced exercise capacity and increased morbidity and mortality, resulting in reduced quality of life. Physical training has been shown to be beneficial in PH, even in severely limited patients. However, due to cardiopulmonary constraints in PH, training intensities may be very low, so that many patients are physically almost unable to perform exercise on a high enough level to maintain muscle mass. A low body muscle not only feeds the vicious cycle of decreasing exercise capacity, but also has many deleterious metabolic and immunological consequences which further increase disability and decrease quality of life in PH. Thus, eccentric training, which allows to gain muscle mass with a low stress to the cardiopulmonary unit may to be highly beneficial for patients with PH and allied cardiopulmonary disease, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and heart failure. Therefore, the objective of the trial is, to compare differences in oxygen uptake (peak VO2 [l/min]) and other physiological measures during similar cardiopulmonary exercise test protocols of eccentric- vs. concentric cycling in PH- patients and comparators with or without other cardiopulmonary diseases.Read full original descriptionShow less

Visa-versa! Breaking Instead of Pushing the Pedals: Eccentric Exercise to Improve Training Performance in Patients With Heart Failure. A Single-center Randomized Controlled Trial

Eccentric muscle work is defined as lengthening of a muscle while applying force. It was shown that with eccentric work, muscles are able to perform four times as much power compared to usual concentric work, which results in huge training gain with a highly decreased oxygen demand and thus lower cardiovascular load. Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is a chronic condition associated with significant reduced exercise capacity and increased morbidity and mortality, resulting in reduced quality of life. Physical training has been shown to be beneficial in PH, even in severely limited patients. However, due to cardiopulmonary constraints in PH, training intensities may be very low, so that many patients are physically almost unable to perform exercise on a high enough level to maintain muscle mass. A low body muscle not only feeds the vicious cycle of decreasing exercise capacity, but also has many deleterious metabolic and immunological consequences which further increase disability and decrease quality of life in PH. Thus, eccentric training, which allows to gain muscle mass with a low stress to the cardiopulmonary unit may to be highly beneficial for patients with PH and allied cardiopulmonary disease, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and heart failure. Therefore, the objective of the trial is, to compare differences in oxygen uptake (peak VO2 [l/min]) and other physiological measures during similar cardiopulmonary exercise test protocols of eccentric- vs. concentric cycling in PH- patients and comparators with or without other cardiopulmonary diseases.

Inclusion: In a stable condition on the same disease specific medication >4 weeks; Signed informed consent; Patients with left-heart disease.

Exclusion: Other clinically significant concomitant disease states (e.g., renal, hepatic dysfunction, etc.); Inability to follow the procedures of the study, e.g. due to language problems, psychological disorder, dementia or confusional state of the subject, neurological or orthopedic problems with inability to ride a bicycle; Severe daytime hypoxemia (pO2 ≤7.3 kPa or <55 mmHg); Woman with known pregnancy (Women with known pregnancy will not be allowed into the study. It will however not be searched for early unknown pregnancy in woman of child-bearing potential, as cycling is not contraindicated in early unknown pregnancy stage and we thus do not plan routine pregnancy tests before study entrance in women of childbearing potential); Enrolment into another clinical trial with active treatment.

ClinicalTrials.gov NCT05204693