The Study
Dynamic right ventricular and atrial volume responses to exercise in endurance-trained and untrained healthy individuals
This study looked at how two groups of people’s hearts behave during exercise — one group trained hard, the other didn’t. It found their hearts acted differently, but it didn’t make one group train or change anything. So we can’t say training caused the difference — maybe the athletes were born with hearts that liked exercise more.
Analysis score
Maximum 44 for a cross-sectional study.
Where the score came from
Athletes' hearts adapt to training by squeezing the right side more efficiently during hard exercise, while non-athletes' hearts don't change much.
Where does this study sit?
Reviews of RCTs (Meta-analyses)
Max 100Randomized Trials
Max 90Reviews of Cohort Studies
Max 85Cohort Studies
Max 72Reviews of Case-Control Studies
Max 63Case-Control Studies
Max 58Cross-Sectional & Case Series
Max 50Expert Opinion
Max 544 / 100
Quality score
Snapshots of a population at a single point in time, or descriptions of small groups. Can identify correlations and prevalence, but cannot determine cause and effect.
Key takeaways
Summary
Based on the study abstract and findings.
- 1Yes — this means athletes' hearts move blood through the lungs more efficiently during intense exercise, helping them perform better.
- 2In athletes: right heart volume dropped during exercise; right pumping efficiency went up.
- 3In non-athletes: no change in right heart volume or pumping.
Score breakdown, methodology, conflicts of interest, evidence analysis & raw study data
Publication
Journal
PLOS One
Year
2026
Authors
Björn Östenson, E. Ostenfeld, Jonathan Edlund, Håkan Arheden, K. Steding-Ehrenborg
Related Content
Claims (6)
During exercise, the proportion of time the heart spends contracting versus relaxing is different in endurance athletes compared to people who are not trained athletes.
People who regularly train for endurance sports show a measurable reduction in the size of the right ventricle of the heart during intense exercise, while people who do not train show no such change. This difference reflects a physiological adaptation to long-term endurance training that improves how efficiently the heart pumps under stress.
People who regularly do endurance exercise have a smaller right atrium during intense physical activity than people who do not train, which improves blood flow back to the heart and increases heart efficiency under stress.
During intense exercise, the right ventricle of the heart pumps more blood in endurance-trained people but not in people who are not trained.
Endurance-trained people show different changes in the size of the right upper and lower heart chambers during exercise compared to untrained people, but the left upper chamber changes the same in both groups, showing that exercise affects the right side of the heart more than the left.
During intense exercise, the size of the left ventricle of the heart decreases in both trained and untrained people, and the degree of decrease is the same in both groups.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before making health decisions.