Appropriate exercise prescription in primary and secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease: why this skill remains to be improved among clinicians and healthcare professionals. A call for action from the EXPERT Network

Abstract

In Europe alone, on a yearly basis, millions of people need an appropriate exercise prescription to prevent the occurrence or progression of cardiovascular disease (CVD). A general exercise recommendation can be provided to these individuals (at least 150 min of moderate-intensity endurance exercise, spread over 3-5 days/week, complemented by dynamic moderate-intensity resistance exercise 2 days/week). However, recent evidence shows that this one size does not fit all and that individual adjustments should be made according to the patient's underlying disease(s), risk profile, and individual needs, to maximize the clinical benefits of exercise. In this paper, we (i) argue that this general exercise prescription simply provided to all patients with CVD, or elevated risk for CVD, is insufficient for optimal CVD prevention, and (ii) show that clinicians and healthcare professionals perform heterogeneously when asked to adjust exercise characteristics (e.g. intensity, volume, and type) according to the patient's condition, thereby leading to suboptimal CVD risk factor control. Since exercise training is a class 1A intervention in the primary and secondary prevention of CVD, the awareness of the need to improve exercise prescription has to be raised among clinicians and healthcare professionals if optimized prevention of CVD is ambitioned.