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Cardiac adipose tissue (CAT) has become an important target for the reduction of disease risk. Supervised exercise programs have shown potential to "significantly" reduce CAT; however, the impact of different exercise modalities is not clear, and the relationships between CAT, physical activity (PA) levels and fitness (PFit) remain unknown. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to analyze the relationships between CAT, PA and PFit, and to explore the effects of different exercise modalities in a group of women with obesity. A total of 26 women (age: 23.41 ± 5.78 years-old) were enrolled in the cross-sectional study. PA, cardiorespiratory fitness, muscular strength, body composition and CAT were evaluated. The pilot intervention included 16 women randomized to a control (CON, n=5), high intensity interval training (HIIT, n = 5) and high-intensity circuit training (HICT, n=6) groups. Statistical analysis showed negative correlations between CAT and vigorous PA (VPA) ( r s =-0.41, p =0.037); and between percent body fat (%BF), fat mass (FM), and all PA levels ( r s =-0.41- -0.68, p <0.05); while muscle mass was positively associated with moderate-to-vigorous PA, and upper-body lean mass with all PA levels ( r s =0.40-0.53, p <0.05). The HICT intervention showed significant improvements ( p <0.05) in %BF, FM, fat free mass, and whole-body and lower extremities lean mass and strength after three weeks; however, only leg strength and upper extremities' FM improved significantly compared to CON and HICT. In conclusion, although all types of PA showed a positive influence on body fat content, only VPA significantly impacted on CAT volume. Moreover, three weeks of HICT induced positive changes in PFit in women with obesity. Further research is needed to explore VPA levels and high-intensity exercise interventions for short- and long-term CAT management., Competing Interests: Author BSS was employed by Heartland Medical Research, Inc. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 Thapa, Selvaraj, Davis, Smith, Givan, Perez-Rivera, Woodard, Klingensmith and Fernandez-del-Valle.)

Combat sports athletes competing in the same discipline exhibit notable and substantial differences in body weight, body composition (BC) and adiposity. No studies have considered the influence of adiposity levels in the agreement between different BC assessment methods. The aim of this study was to analyze the influence of adiposity in the agreement between different methods used to estimate relative body fat (%BF) in Olympic combat sport athletes. A total of 38 male athletes were evaluated using air displacement plethysmography and dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) as laboratory methods, and bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA), near-infrared interactance (NIR) and anthropometry as field methods. All methods were compared to DXA. Agreement analyses were performed by means of individual intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) for each method compared to DXA, Bland−Altman plots and paired Student t-tests. The ICCs for the different methods compared to DXA were analyzed, considering tertiles of %BF, tertiles of body weight and type of sport. For the whole group, individual ICCs oscillated between 0.806 for BIA and 0.942 for anthropometry. BIA showed a statistically significant underestimation of %BF when compared to DXA. The agreement between every method and DXA was not affected by %BF, but it was highest in athletes at the highest %BF tertile (>13%). The ICC between NIR and DXA was poor in 72−82 kg athletes. Our results indicate that field methods are useful for routine %BF analysis, and that anthropometry is particularly appropriate, as it showed the highest accuracy irrespective of the athletes’ adiposity.

Aim: To date, few studies have analyzed the effects of exercise on cardiac adipose tissue. Overall, exercise programs did not meet the recommendations for significant weight loss, the utilization of resistance training was minimal, and the conclusions derived from these studies have diminished exercise as a strategy for cardiac fat loss., Purpose: The objective of this pilot study was to analyze the effects of 3-week high-intensity, moderate-volume muscular endurance resistance training (RT) on cardiac fat and arterial stiffness., Methods: A total of 11 young females with obesity, BMI = 34.13 (± 3.16) kg/m 2 (n = 5 control, n = 6 intervention) completed the study. Absolute strength was assessed using one repetition maximum test (1RM) for bench press (BP) and leg press (LP), and relative strength was calculated using body weight (BW) as BP-to-BW and LP-to-BW ratio. Magnetic resonance was used to quantify epicardial and paracardial adipose tissue (EAT and PAT) volume, and applanation tonometry was used to assess arterial stiffness by estimating pulse wave velocity (PWV)., Results: EAT and PAT volumes (ml) showed significant interaction effects (p = 0.037 and p = 0.031), and very large changes (d > 1) of EAT (p = 0.006) and PAT (p = 0.036) in the intervention group. In addition, strength was significantly improved, including BP (p = 0.003), LP (p = 0.001), BP-to-BW ratio (p = 0.001), and LP-to-BW ratio (p = 0.002), while no changes were found in PWV., Conclusions: High-intensity, moderate-volume RT, designed to enhance muscular endurance following the recommendations reduces EAT and PAT volumes, improves physical fitness in females with obesity, and has no negative effects on arterial stiffness.