Diabetes is characterized by depressed cardiac functional properties attributed to Ca2+-activated ATPase activity. In contrast, endurance swimming enhances the cardiac functional properties and Ca2+-activated myofibril ATPase. Thus, the purpose of this study was to observe if the changes associated with experimental diabetes can be ameliorated with training. Diabetes was induced with a single i.v. injection of streptozotocin (60 mg/kg). Blood and urine glucose concentrations were 802 +/- 44 and 6965 +/- 617 mg/dL, respectively. The training control and training diabetic animals were made to swim (+/- 2% body weight) 4 days/week for 8 weeks. Cardiac myofibril, at 10 microM free Ca2+ concentration was reduced by 54% in the sedentary diabetics compared with sedentary control animals (p less than 0.05). Swim training enhanced the Ca2+-activated myofibril ATPase activities for the normal animals. The diabetic animals, which swam for 8 weeks, had further reduced their Ca2+-activated myofibril ATPase activity when compared with sedentary diabetics (p less than 0.05). Similarly, the Mg2+-stimulated myofibril ATPase activity was depressed by 31% in diabetics following endurance swimming. It is concluded that the depressed Ca2+-activated myofibril ATPase activity of diabetic hearts is not reversible with endurance swimming.