Little attention has been directed to the utility of unsupervised physical training at home in post-myocardial infarction patients. The present investigation was designed to assess the effects of exercise training at home on functional parameters soon after myocardial infarction. One hundred and eighteen male post-myocardial infarction patients under 70 years old, that performed a pre-discharge exercise test, were randomly allocated soon after the acute event, into a 12 to 14 weeks unsupervised physical training at home and into a control group. The control-group patients were informally encouraged to practice exercise. Before training, the cardiorespiratory parameters were similar in both groups. After training, improvement of all these variables was greater in the training group. Maximal oxygen consumption increased 7.6 +/- 3.6ml/kg/min in the training group by 3.8 +/- 2.6ml/kg/min in the control group (p = 0.00001), maximal heart rate increased 14.6 +/- 13.4 by 8.4 +/- 5.7 beats/min (p = 0.001), and similar results were obtained with maximal double product and exercise test duration (33 +/- 46 versus 17 +/- 12, p = 0.009; 2.2 +/- 1.1 versus 0.9 +/- 1.1 min, p = 0.00001) always trained patients favour. Nine trained patients and 16 control-group patients showed myocardial ischemia in both exercise tests. At ischemia threshold, the achieved improvement was again greater in treated patients, concerning to heart rate (p = 0.02), double product (p = 0.0005) and exercise time (p = 0.02). Unsupervised physical training at home, based on results of the pre-discharge exercise test, increases the functional capacity and delays exertional ischemia in post-myocardial infarction patients with low-moderate risk for cardiac rehabilitation.

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