Impact of a 12 weeks supervised exercise training program on pulmonary functions of patients with exercise induced asthma

BackgroundExercise induced bronchoconstriction typically develops within 5–15 min after completing exercise. Patients develop typical asthma symptoms or sometimes troublesome cough, which usually resolve spontaneously within 30–45 min. Previous studies tried to find the best way for these subjects aiming to improve exercise performance, respiratory symptoms and quality of life without provoking this type of asthma.ObjectiveTo investigate the effect of supervised exercise training on spirometry measures of patients with exercise induced bronchospasm (EIB) and to guess its benefit as an adjuvant to pharmacological treatment.Subjects and methodsWe studied fifty subjects with EIB; their age ranged 25–35 years. They underwent spirometry (FVC%, FEV1%, FEV1/FVC% and FEF25–75%) before and after supervised exercise training program guided by the calculated maximum work rate (MWR) of each participant throughout the 3 months period of the exercise training program.ResultsPre and post-training FEV1% pred. and calculated FEV1% decline were compared over the 12-week supervised training program time using one way ANOVA test and revealed significant improvement throughout the training sessions. MWR was measured pre and post supervised training program and were compared using the paired-t test which revealed a significant improvement.ConclusionIt was concluded that a 12-week supervised exercise training program enhanced the performance of subjects with EIB, led to improvements in asthma control.