Occidental life styles, including physical inactivity, are related to risk of developing heart diseases. To prevent or even mitigate these effects, the frequent recommendation has been the practice of physical exercise as a measure of therapeutic interaction in preventive medicine and rehabilitation. Thus, our study was carried out to evidence the effects of aerobic physical exercise regularly practiced, through swimming, calorimetry, lipid profile, and oxidative stress in myocardium. Thirty-two Winstar rats, males, 75 days old were used. Animals were divided into two groups: C (n=8) as the control, which received food and water ad libitum and TR (n=8) as the trained group received the same treatment as C and animals in this group were submitted to swim. Swimming was used as a model of exercise with moderate intensity training for eight weeks. The experimental design was completely randomized with 16 treatments and eight replications, with a significance level of 5% probability. Calorimetry shows lower carbohydrate oxidation and increased lipid oxidation in C when compared with TR. The trained group had higher glucose, higher HDL-cholesterol and lower accumulation of triglycerides, and verified the protective effect in cardiac tissue. Thus, we can conclude that the swimming protocol was effective in controlling deleterious effects caused by poor habits on the myocardium.

Occidental lifestyle including lack of physical activity, are related to risk of developing heart diseases. ATP has a central role in understanding cardiac metabolism. Thus, this study was carried out to discuss aerobic cardiac metabolism, with most of the energy provided by oxidative phosphorylation. The ATP produced by this pathway is essentially used for contraction in non-pathological conditions. In addition, situations are discussed on the glycolytic pathway to produce ATP under pathological conditions. Thus, in some cardiomyopathies, the manipulation of the metabolic status of the heart represents an attractive alternative for the prevention of later complications.