Original articles   

The Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness 2000 June;40(2):156-61

Copyright © 2002 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

language: English

Comparison of exertional indices following moderate training in collegiate athletes

Thomas S. J., Cooney T. E., Thomas D. J.

From the Departments of Orthopaedics and Research Hamot Medical Center, Erie, PA * Medical College of Virginia, Richmond, VA

Back­ground. To bet­ter under­stand the inflam­ma­to­ry ­response to two diver­gent train­ing modal­ities: run­ning and ­weight train­ing.
Meth­ods. Experi­men­tal ­design: pros­pec­tive, ­repeat meas­ures, obser­va­tion­al ­study of sub­jects ­over the ­course of 8-10 ­weeks of train­ing. ­Data anal­y­sis was con­so­nant ­with ­this ­design and includ­ed a ­repeat meas­ures ANO­VA ­with mul­ti­ple ­posthoc com­par­i­sons. The lev­el of sig­nif­i­cance was set at 0.05. Set­ting: col­le­giate ath­let­ic train­ing facil­ities. ­Patients: twen­ty-two sub­jects com­prised the ­study ­group. ­These includ­ed ­both ­male and ­female col­le­giate ath­letes, ­ages 17-22 ­years of age ­with a ­mean ­height of 178.6 cm, a ­mean ­weight of 77.5 kg and a ­mean ­lean ­body ­mass of 67.2 kg. Exclu­sion cri­te­ria con­sist­ed of hemo­phil­ia or chron­ic con­di­tions requir­ing ­anti-inflam­ma­to­ry med­i­ca­tion. Inter­ven­tions: train­ing for run­ners (n=11) con­sist­ed of mul­ti­ple 5-km ­runs through­out the ­course of a 60-75 min­ute work­out. For a com­par­able ­time peri­od, ­weight train­ers par­tic­i­pat­ed in mul­ti­ple ­joint, ­total ­body strength­en­ing work­outs. Meas­ures: ­four exer­tion­al indi­ces ­were exam­ined. ­These includ­ed ser­um lev­els of crea­tine ­kinase, lac­tate, Inter­leu­kin-6, and C-reac­tive pro­tein. Assess­ments of ­these mark­ers ­were ­made imme­di­ate­ly ­before and ­after ­each train­ing ses­sion. ­Three ses­sions ­were mon­i­tored ­over an 8-10 ­week peri­od.
­Results. The ­data ­show ­that mod­er­ate exer­tion is accom­pa­nied by mod­est increas­es in ­these mark­ers. ­Mean ser­um val­ues did not ­exceed 125 U/L for ser­um crea­tine ­kinase, 5 mM/l for lac­tates, and 2.6 pg/ml for IL-6. C-reac­tive pro­tein was spo­rad­i­cal­ly detect­able in ­weight lift­ers ­only. ­These increas­es ­were detect­ed imme­di­ate­ly post­ex­er­cise. ­Each train­ing modal­ity pro­duced a ­unique pro­file for crea­tine ­kinase and IL-6, sug­ges­tive of a train­ing ­effect.
Con­clu­sions. Over­all, the lev­els for all exer­tion­al mark­ers report­ed here­in are ­well ­below ­those report­ed for exhaus­tive exer­cise. As con­sis­tent exhaus­tive ­efforts can cat­a­lyze over­train­ing syn­dromes, peri­od­ic assess­ments of ­these exer­tion­al indi­ces ­could ­help to doc­u­ment the appro­pri­ate­ness of the train­ing stim­u­lus.