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Sean Pymer

Sean Pymer

Academic Clinical Exercise Physiologist

Faculty and Department

  • Faculty of Health Sciences
  • Hull York Medical School

Qualifications

  • BA (York St John University)
  • MSc (University of Hull)
  • PhD / DPhil

Summary

Sean Pymer is an exercise physiologist at the Hull York Medical School. His background is in clinical exercise physiology having undertaken a PhD at Hull York Medical School and an MSc at the University of Hull. His research interests include exercise interventions in cardiovascular disease and the role of cardiopulmonary exercise testing as a risk stratification and exercise prescription tool.

Sean's MSc research project was entitled 'Does exercise prescription based on estimated heart rate training zones exceed the ventilatory anaerobic threshold in patients with coronary heart disease undergoing usual-care cardiovascular rehabilitation?: A United Kingdom perspective'.

His PhD project considered the role of alternative exercise programmes for the treatment of intermittent claudication - ranging from home-based exercise to high-intensity exercise. The first study considered the evidence for home-based exercise programmes via a systematic review and meta-analysis.

However, the main focus of his thesis was to consider the role of high-intensity interval training (HIIT) in patients with intermittent claudication. His systematic review demonstrated that the evidence for HIIT in this patient group was limited. However, it did suggest that low-volume, short-duration HIIT could be beneficial. This lead to two cohort studies considering the feasibility, tolerability, safety and acceptability of HIIT for patients with IC. The results of these studies have been presented at international conferences and were recently published in the Journal of Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation and Prevention.

The findings have also allowed for refinement of the HIIT intervention, that is now being considered in an NIHR funded multi-centre proof-of-concept study - which he is leading.

Sean's day to day role involves leading the aforementioned NIHR study, collaborating on other research projects, overseeing an NHS supervised exercise programme for intermittent claudication and performing pre-operative cardiopulmonary exercise testing for patients with abdominal aortic aneurysms being considered for repair.

Sean has also published a number of articles from him MSc, PhD and current collaborations.

MSc clinical exercise physiology / cardiovascular rehabilitation modules:

- Clinical exercise testing, prescription and programming

- Essentials of exercise rehabilitation

Recent outputs

View more outputs

Journal Article

Provision of NICE-recommended varicose vein treatment in the NHS

Hitchman, L., Mohamed, A., Smith, G. E., Pymer, S., Chetter, I. C., Forsyth, J., & Carradice, D. (2023). Provision of NICE-recommended varicose vein treatment in the NHS. British journal of surgery, 110(2), 225-232. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjs/znac392

Effects of exercise prescribed at different levels of claudication pain on walking performance in patients with intermittent claudication: a protocol for a randomised controlled trial

Birkett, S., Sinclair, J., Seed, S., Pymer, S., Caldow, E., Ingle, L., …Egun, A. (2022). Effects of exercise prescribed at different levels of claudication pain on walking performance in patients with intermittent claudication: a protocol for a randomised controlled trial. Therapeutic Advances in Cardiovascular Disease, 16, https://doi.org/10.1177/17539447221108817

The Edinburgh Claudication Questionnaire has poor diagnostic accuracy in people with intermittent claudication

Ibeggazene, S., Cai, P. L., Smith, G. E., Ibbegazene, S., Stirrup, A., Pymer, S., …Chetter, I. C. (in press). The Edinburgh Claudication Questionnaire has poor diagnostic accuracy in people with intermittent claudication. Vascular, https://doi.org/10.1177/17085381211059665

A systematic review of exercise intervention reporting quality and dose in studies of intermittent claudication

Ibeggazene, S., Pymer, S., Birkett, S. T., Caldow, E., & Harwood, A. E. (in press). A systematic review of exercise intervention reporting quality and dose in studies of intermittent claudication. Vascular, https://doi.org/10.1177/17085381211070700

A Systematic Review of Exercise Prescription in Patients with Intermittent Claudication: Does Pain Matter?

Seed, S., Harwood, A., Sinclair, J., Pymer, S., Caldow, E., Ingle, L., …Birkett, S. (in press). A Systematic Review of Exercise Prescription in Patients with Intermittent Claudication: Does Pain Matter?. Annals of vascular surgery, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.avsg.2021.06.025

Research interests

Clinical exercise physiology

Exercise for the treatment of chronic diseases

Cardiovascular rehabilitation

Cardiopulmonary exercise testing

Postgraduate supervision

Exercise testing and training for chronic diseases.

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