Does the immediate endurance post-training test underestimate cardiac rehabilitation effects?

A patient with coronary artery disease performed a 14-week cardiac rehabilitation program. Endurance exercise tolerance was assessed using a constant-duration exercise test performed before, immediately after and one month after the program. The results showed that endurance exercise tolerance achieved a higher value at one month post-training. We concluded that the usual pre- versus post-test comparison underestimated the beneficial effects of training program. This must be taken into account for long term planning of phase 3 cardiac rehabilitation.