Sport as Therapy: a 6-months Lifestyle-Intervention for Patients With Coronary Artery Disease and/or Diabetes

From 2011, patients insured at "Techniker" health insurance company with diagnosed coronary heart disease, heart failure and/or diabetes mellitus are being included in a 6-months training program. Training is performed 3 times weekly for 6 weeks, then twice weekly for another 6 weeks, while patients are asked to do home based training. The last phase of 12 weeks, supervised training is only once/week. Patients are asked to perform exercise training 3-5 times weekly. At the beginning as well as after 3 and 6 months, patients present for medical check-up with cardiorespiratory exercise testing from which training instructions are drawn. Training-intensity begins with moderate continuous training and switches to higher intensity interval training after 6 weeks. Resistance training starts after 6 weeks and is performed within the supervised training. All patients were offered an individual nutritional counseling.