Table 1.

Baseline characteristics of the study population

Study population		Exercise	Control	p
Total	N	22	22
Sex	(f;m)	13;9	14;8
Age	y	40.4 ± 13.1	43.6 ± 14.3	0.275
Height	cm	172.7 ± 9.5	170.8 ± 12.2	0.584
Weight	kg	71.1 ± 10.4	75.1 ± 17.0	0.369
BMI	index	23.8 ± 2.7	25.5 ± 3.9	0.117
Training units/wks	number	2.3 ± 0.4
Exercise compliance	%	96.7 ± 2.0
Time post-COVID	days	284.5 ± 148.6	270.4 ± 151	0.761
LVEF	%	65.0 ± 5.6	65.3 ± 6.5	0.865
GLS	%	− 20.0 ± 1.5	− 20.0 ± 2.2	0.971
Laboratory data
Hemoglobin	mmol/l	8.7 ± 0.7	8.6 ± 0.8	0.720
hsCRP	mmol/l	1.4 ± 1.4	1.4 ± 1.2	0.993
Troponin-T	pg/ml	4.3 ± 1.4	4.5 ± 1.9	0.777
NT-proBNP	pg/ml	71.6 ± 29.8	83.7 ± 62.4	0.450
Ferritin	ng/ml	121.9 ± 107.6	139.3 ± 109.5	0.645
Transferrin	g/l	2.7 ± 0.6	2.6 ± 0.3	0.608
TSH	mU/l	1.6 ± 0.6	1.4 ± 0.9	0.350

BMI body-mass index; wks weeks