Physical activity is known to have beneficial effects on prevention of cardiovascular disease and on microcirculation. The aim of our study was to compare the carotid-radial pulse transit time as a measure of small artery compliance being under strong sympathetic control and the pulse arrival time to the capillary bed of the finger tip as a measure of the state of the microvasculature in middle aged healthy subjects before, during and 20 minutes after aerobic exercise. Experiments were performed on 11 males, 47±6 years old. The study was accordant to the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by the national Ethics Committee. We measured ECG, arterial blood pressure using Finapres Ohmeda with a finger cuff on the middle finger of the right hand, laser Doppler skin blood flow on the finger pulp of the pointer finger of the same hand and carotid or radial pulse with a tonometer (Millar SPT 30). After 5 minutes supine rest subjects mounted the cycloergometer and their right arm was fixed on an armrest. They rested in sitting position for additional 5 minutes, than they started a graded exercise at the workload of 40 W. The workload increased in steps of 50W lasting 3 minutes each until 85% of the estimated maximal heart rate was reached. After ceasing exercising, the parameters were measured for subsequent 25 minutes. Carotid-radial pulse transit time (c-rtT) and pulse arrival time to the capillary bed (PATc) using pulse arrival time to the radial artery on the same hand as a reference were calculated. RR interval duration was determined using ECG. Our results revealed that c-rtT exhibited no statistically significant differences before and 20 minutes after exercise (100,8 ±3,1ms and 99,3 ±2,0ms), but was significantly decreased at highest workload (84,1±0,2ms). On the other hand PATc was increased 20 minutes after exercise compared to resting values (126,0 ±9,2ms and 116,7 ±5,2ms) and significantly decreased at highest workload (107,8±1,6ms). The heart rate at peak exercise was 150,2±0,9bpm, 20 minutes after exercise it remained significantly higher then at rest (82,4 ±1,5 bpm and 62,8 ±1,3bpm respectively), while arterial blood pressure returned to control values short after the cessation of exercise. A linear correlation between c-rtT and corresponding RR interval duration during exercise was found (p<0.001) but no correlation between PATc and RR. We conclude that during exercise increased sympathetic tone is the main reason for increasing c-rtT, but other mechanisms should contribute to the regulation of the finger tip skin microcirculation, where termoregulation plays a major role. Further experiments are needed to elucidate exact mechanisms involved in the small artery and microvasculature response to exercise.