Physical activity is known to have beneficial effects on prevention of cardiovascular disease and on microcirculation. The aim of our study was to measure the carotid-radial pulse wave velocity and the transit time for blood to reach the finger tip skin capillary bed in middle aged healthy subjects before, during and 20 minutes after aerobic exercise.

Experiments were performed on 9 males, 47±7 years old. We measured ECG, arterial blood pressure, skin blood flow (SkBF) and carotid or radial pulse with a tonometer. After 5 minutes rest subjects started a graded exercise at the workload of 40 W in steps of 50W lasting 3 minutes each until 85% of the estimated maximal heart rate was reached. After ceasing exercising, the parameters were measured for subsequent 25 minutes. Carotid-radial pulse wave velocity (c-rPWV) and transit time for the pulse to propagate from the radial artery to finger tip skin capillary bed (r-sk tT) were calculated.

Our results revealed that c-rPWV was significantly smaller and r-sk tT significantly longer 20 minutes after exercise compared to control values while the heart rate was still significantly elevated (65,4±5,2 and 77,5±8,2). A linear correlation between c-rPWV and corresponding RR duration during exercise was found (p<0.05) but no correlation between r-sk tT and RR.

We conclude that during exercise increased sympathetic tone is the main reason for increasing c-rPWV, but other mechanisms should contribute to the regulation of the finger tip skin microcirculation, where termoregulation plays a major role.