Table 7.

Sex differences in physiological adaptation.

Sex differences between female and male healthy non-athletes and athletes are comparable in magnitude across all geometric and functional features suggesting that exercise does not change intrinsic sex differences. Adaptation from health to athlete's hearts reveals significant changes with similar trends in men and women. Percentage differences between male and female for healthy and athlete's hearts, and percentage adaptation from healthy to athlete for male and female hearts; ^* indicates an unexpected decrease that could, in part, be caused by differences in measuring techniques across studies. Negative values in red indicate that the female parameter is smaller.