Acute Oxidative Effect and Muscle Damage after a Maximum 4 Min Test in High Performance Athletes

The purpose of this investigation was to determine lipid peroxidation markers, physiological stress and muscle damage in elite kayakers in response to a maximum 4-min kayak ergometer test (KE test), and possible correlations with individual 1000m kayaking performances. The sample consisted of twenty-three adult male and nine adult female elite kayakers, with more than three years’ experience in international events, who voluntarily took part in this study. The subjects performed a 10-min warm-up, followed by a 2-min passive interval, before starting the test itself, which consisted of a maximum 4-min work paddling on an ergometer; right after the end of the test, an 8 ml blood sample was collected for analysis. 72 hours after the test, all athletes took part in an official race, when then it was possible to check their performance in the on site K1 1000m test (P1000m). The results showed that all lipoproteins and hematological parameters tested presented a significant difference (p≤0.05) after exercise for both genders. In addition, parameters related to muscle damage such as lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and creatine kinase (CK) presented significant differences after stress. Uric acid presented an inverse correlation with the performance (r = -0.76), while CK presented a positive correlation (r = 0.46) with it. Based on these results, it was possible to verify muscle damage and the level of oxidative stress caused by indoor training with specific ergometers for speed kayaking, highlighting the importance of analyzing and getting to know the physiological responses to this type of training, in order to provide information to coaches and optimize athletic performance.

Citation: Ferreira HR, Ferreira PG, Loures JP, Fernandes Filho J, Fernandes LC, Buck HS, et al. (2016) Acute Oxidative Effect and Muscle Damage after a Maximum 4 Min Test in High Performance Athletes. PLoS ONE 11(4):
e0153709.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0153709

Editor: Guillermo López Lluch, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Centro Andaluz de Biología del Desarrollo-CSIC, SPAIN

Received: June 1, 2015; Accepted: April 3, 2016; Published: April 25, 2016

Copyright: © 2016 Ferreira et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: All relevant data are within the paper.

Funding: This work was supported by CAPES (Coordination of Improvement of Higher Education Personnel—Improvement Coordination of Higher Education Personnel) and FAP (Research Support Fund—FCMSCSP—Santa Casa de São Paulo School of Medical Sciences—Research support fund—Santa Casa de São Paulo School of Medical Sciences). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Abbreviations:
KE,
kayak ergometer; K1,
kayak individual; LDH,
lactate dehydrogenase; CK,
creatine kinase; P1000m,
Performance on 1.000m; W,
Watts; EDTA,
Ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid; VLDL,
very low density lipoprotein; HDL,
high density lipoprotein; LDL,
low density lipoprotein; DGKC,
German Society of Clinical Chemistry; UV,
ultraviolet; CK,
Creatine kinase; CK MM,
muscle isoform of creatine kinase; VO2Peak,
peak oxygen uptake

This study investigates oxidative stress and muscle damage in elite kayakers after a 4-min ergometer test.