Synergy effect of hypoxia and Pilates program for health promotion in obese women

Pilates program in normoxia (N trial) and Pilates program in 3,000-m (inspired oxygen fraction = 14.5%) hypoxia (H trial).they performed tubing Pilates program for 50-min in normoxia and hypoxia. Blood pressure, branchial ankle pulse wave velocity, and flow mediated dilation (FMD) in branchial artery were measured before and after exercise. Metabolic parameters and cardiac function were measured every minutes during Pilates program. As a results, both trial showed a significant increase in FMD via Pilates program and the increase rate in FMD was significantly higher in H trial than in N trial. Also, H trial showed a significantly higher FMD before Pilates program than N trial. In metabolic parameters, H trial showed significantly higher minute ventilation, carbon dioxide excretion, respiratory exchange ratio and carbohydrate oxidation, but fat oxidation was lower than N trial. In cardiac function, heart rate showed a significant increase in H trial compared with N trial. Our results suggest that Pilates program in hypoxia shows greater metabolic and cardiac response, and it also elicit synergistic effect on vascular endothelial function than under normoxia in Pilates players.