Recovery From a National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I Football Game: Muscle Damage and Hormonal Status

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine markers of skeletal muscle tissue damage and circulating anabolic and catabolic hormones to gain insight into the recovery process from Friday until Monday, when a new practice week begins. Twenty-eight National Collegiate Athletic Association Division I football players gave consent to participate in the investigation in the ninth game of the season. Sixteen players started the game and played the entire game (PL), and 12 others did not play and were on the bench during the game (DNP). Each player had fasted blood samples obtained at the same time of day between 1000 and 1200 hours the day before the game (Friday; T1), 18-20 hours after the game (Sunday; T2), and then 42-44 hours after the game (Monday; T3). Blood samples were analyzed for concentrations of creatine kinase (CK), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), myoglobin, testosterone, and cortisol. The PL players showed significantly (p <or= 0.05) increased concentrations of CK (T2 > T1 and T3), myoglobin (T2 > T1 and T3), and LDH (T2 > T1). In contrast, DNP players showed significant differences in cortisol (T3 < T1 and T2) and testosterone:cortisol (T3 > T1). Few changes were observed in testosterone and cortisol changes, indicating stability of the anabolic/catabolic hormones. In conclusion, these data indicate that participation in a college football game late in the season results in some degree of tissue damage but with minimal hormonal responses, which seem to have stabilized at resting concentrations without predominance of cortisol's catabolic presence. As previously noted in the literature, some type of "contact adaptation" to the season may have occurred with regard to tissue damage responses. However, by the ninth game of a season, players do carry soft tissue damage levels above resting ranges into subsequent games, indicating that recovery should be monitored, with coaches being careful with scheduling scrimmage and full-contact drills. How such data implicate overuse injuries remains unclear, considering that hormonal status in this study was highly stable, with catabolic influences minimized by the high level of athlete conditioning. These data again support that high-level conditioning can stabilize anabolic and catabolic hormonal signals and limit acute soft tissue injury, making cerebral concussion (acute and chronic) and traumatic injury the biggest threats to a student-athlete's health and well-being during an American football game.

Stress and muscle damage monitoring in high-level basketball players

“…The highest C levels in the pre-season coincide with the highest training volume in that period. The disappearance of hypercortisolaemia after exercise training requires 2-4 hours [7,18]. Our results suggest a longer period for normalisation of C level.…”

“…Cortisol is considered an important stress hormone which acts to mediate catabolic activity, decreasing protein synthesis and increasing protein degradation in the muscle tissue [5,17,24]. Blood CK level is considered an indirect measure of skeletal-muscle damage in response to the physical load [2,6,18,19,23]. Higher intensity and total volume as well as short rest intervals are associated with the magnitude of stress and muscle damage [2,9,19,23].…”

“…Higher intensity and total volume as well as short rest intervals are associated with the magnitude of stress and muscle damage [2,9,19,23]. Numerous laboratory and field studies address changes in blood cortisol as response to different loads in different environments among athletes [1,3,4,6,8,10,16,18,21,23]. Recently Cunniffe and al.…”

“…Despite the informative content, frequent interventions have met limited practical application in competitive sport because of possible alteration in the regular course of the training cycle. Standardised repeated single interventions as longitudinal measures of hormonal, immunological and biochemical variables have been described in different sports, including team-game sports, as an expression of the impact of training [3,13,15,16,[18][19][20]23]. Analysis of longitudinal measurements can be carried out in comparison with an accepted reference interval but such an approach is not always productive in the case of athletes because of biological, procedural and environmental influences [12].…”

Respostas De Indicadores Fisiológicos a Um Jogo De Futebol

“…Portanto, os níveis elevados de PCr e baixos de testosterona para sujeitos inativos (CKt 171 U/L; LDH 248 U/L) 27,28 , esses dados sugerem que o treinamento diário da modalidade, com as sessões de treino que geralmente se assemelham com as ações do jogo, com arrancadas, travagens e rápidas mudanças de direção, podem resultar em elevação contínua do dano muscular 28 31 , após esforços intermitentes seus níveis se apresentam elevados 4,2,30 , resultados que são corroborados pelo nosso estudo, no entanto, seus índices apresentaram menores proporções do que os valores encontrados para CKt, isso indica que a LDH é um indicador menos sensível de dano muscular 30 .…”