The physiological responses to repeated upper-body sprint exercise in highly trained athletes

Abstract

sprint decrement of 11.7 ± 4.1 %. Cycle rate remained unchanged, whereas work per cycle progressively decreased (P < 0.05). m. triceps brachii and m. latissimus dorsi were highly desaturated already after the first sprint (all P < 0.05), whereas the response was delayed for m. biceps brachii and m. vastus lateralis. Correspondingly, increases in VO 2 mainly occurred over the first two sprints (P < 0.05) and plateaued at approximately 75 % of VO 2peak . 1RM correlated with power during the first four sprints and with average sprint power (r = 0.71-0.80, all P < 0.05), whereas VO 2peak correlated with power in the last three sprints (r = 0.60-0.71, all P < 0.05). Conclusions The main decrement in upper-body sprint performance was evident in the first five sprints, followed by highly desaturated muscles and a plateau in pulmonary oxygen uptake already after the first 2-3 sprints. While high maximal strength seems important for producing power, aerobic capacity correlates with power in the last sprints.Keywords Cross-country · Skiers · Cycle rate · Maximum strength · Oxygen saturation · Oxygen uptake · Power output Methods Twelve male elite cross-country skiers performed eight 8-s maximal poling sprints with a 22-s recovery while sitting on a modified SkiErg poling ergometer. Force, movement velocity, cycle rate, work per cycle, oxygen saturation in working muscles and pulmonary oxygen uptake were measured continuously. A 3-min all-out ergometer poling test determined VO 2peak , and 1 repetition maximum (1RM) strength was determined in a movementspecific pull-down. Results Average sprint power was 281 ± 48 W, with the highest power on the first sprint, a progressive decline in power output over the following four sprints, and a Abbreviations ATTCommunicated by Jean-René Lacour.

The Effect of High Intensity Intermittent Exercise on Power Output for the Upper Body

“…Moreover, the increased day to day reliance on the lower body musculature for ambulation compared to the upper body may induce favourable training adaption's which allow for a reduced decrement in RSA. In support of these findings the present study found the % decrement in total work performed across the five sprints to be approximately 11.4% for the upper body which is in agreement with a recent study conducted using elite cross country skiers [26], however differs compared to previous studies which have reported between approximately 5.4% and 8.5% for the lower body in endurance and team athletes respectively [15]. These findings, in conjunction with reports of a significant correlation between blood buffer capacity and RSA [27] further suggests a reduced buffering capacity of the upper body musculature, which consequently leads to a higher decrement in work performed and thus decreased RSA performance.…”

Comparison of peak oxygen uptake and exercise efficiency between upper-body poling and arm crank ergometry in trained paraplegic and able-bodied participants

“…Not restricting upper-body movement (as is more commonly seen when UBP is used during training and competition), would have led to a different use of the trunk in UBP compared to ACE, in particular in the comparison of PARA versus AB. In UBP, trunk movement can easily contribute to increased power production and thereby elevated MR (Hegge et al 2015). In comparison, due to the asynchronous arm movements in ACE, there is a lower contribution of the trunk movement to power production.…”

“…An ErgStick (Endurance Sports Research Limited, United Kingdom) was connected to the PM4 monitor of the Concept2 ski ergometer and the application Float (ErgStick Ltd, United Kingdom) continuously recorded power output (PO) and stroke rate. The ergometer’s software has previously been validated with force and velocity measurements (Hegge et al 2015). The ACE was custom-made from a road-bike (White, XXL Sport & Villmark AS, Norway) and equipped with an electronical brake system for indoor cycling (CompuTrainer™, RacerMate®, Inc., Seattle, USA).…”

“…The testing then commenced by performing four times 5-min submaximal stages at overall RPEs of 9 (very light), 11 (light), 13 (somewhat hard) and 15 (hard) on a 6–20 Borg scale (Borg 1982). Target RPE at increasing intensities from 9 to 15 (Hegge et al 2015) was used instead of fixed workloads to ensure that the participants covered a similar range of exercise intensities relative to their maximal capacity. In the ACE mode, crank rate was self-chosen within 60–90 revolutions per minute, whereas stroke rate in the UBP mode was fully self-chosen.…”

Influence of averaging method on muscle deoxygenation interpretation during repeated‐sprint exercise

“…When maximal sprint efforts are repeated, however, there is a rapid deoxygenation at exercise onset that slowly recovers at sprint cessation . The evolution of peaks and nadirs across the NIRS signal is often used to describe the quality of metabolic recovery between sprint bouts . Because of the rapid oxygenation adjustments and short duty cycle of repeated‐sprint exercise, accurate identification of peaks and nadirs in the NIRS signal is critical.…”