The ageing process is related to a number of disorders that lead to the onset of several pathologies, among them, autonomic dysfunction and hypertension. A sedentary lifestyle impairs cognitive development and cardiovascular performance. By contrast, maintenance of physical activity confers long-term, neuroprotective and cardiovascular benefits. The mechanisms by which physical exercise improve cardiovascular fitness with age are poorly understood. Here, we hypothesized that exercise training is able to improve autonomic dysfunction of hypertensive ageing animals. This study was approved by the Ethical Committee for Animal Research of the University of Sao Paulo (#115/11/03). The hemodynamic effects of aerobic training and physical inactivity was evaluated in ageing (14-months-old) spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) compared to normotensive Wistar Kyoto (WKY) rats. Animals from each strain were divided into two cohorts: trained (T) and sedentary (S). The exercise training lasted 8 weeks (1h/day, 5 days/week), with adjustments of speed to 50-60% of the maximum test. Animals were anaesthetised with a mixture of ketamine (100mg kg-1) and xylasine (20 mg kg-1, i.p.) for catheterization of femoral artery and blood pressure (BP) and heart rate (HR) monitoring. The baroreflex gain (BRG) was tested with bolus injections of phenylephrine and nitroprussiate (i.v), and indices of autonomic function from the BP and HR variabilities by spectral analysis of cardiovascular at week zero (S0/T0), in the second (T2) and eighth (T8) weeks of exercise training. Finally, we performed an immunoperoxidade staining for ChAT at the dorsal motor vagus (DMV). The performance on the treadmill of trained WKY animals was higher both in the T2 (1.01±0.05 km/h, n=18) and in the T8 (1.04 ± 0,06km/h, n=18) when compared to their respective controls S (0.55 ± 0.05, n=27 and 0.35 ± 0,03km/h, n=27). For SHR the performance on the treadmill of T SHR, were also higher both in the T2 (1.52±0.1km/h, n=18) and in the T8 (1.27 ± 0,04km/h, n=18) when compared with their S controls (1.1 ± 0.14, n=27 and 0.87 ± 0,18km/h, n=27). Mean arterial pressure of T8 SHR was lower (147±6 mmHg, n=9) than in control group S8 (166±7 mmHg, n=8). The baroreflex sensitivity was improved in T8 (2.9±0.6 bpm/mmHg, n=10) SHR when compared to the S8 group (1.5±0.2 bpm/mmHg, n=10). The HF component of the pulse interval was higher in T8 SHR (22.4±5.9 A.U. n=5) than in the control S8 group (6.3±2.4 A.U. n=5). Finally, ChAT immunoperoxidase reaction was higher in the DMV of T8 SHR compared to S8. Collectively, our data show that exercise training of 8 weeks was effective to improve the cardiovascular autonomic dysfunction caused by hypertension in ageing rats.