Abstract
High-intensity training (HIT) is known to have deteriorating effects on performance which manifest in various physiological changes such as lowered force production and oxidative capacity. However, the effect of HIT in climbing on finger flexor performance has not been investigated yet. Twenty-one climbers partook in an intervention study with three assessment time points: pre-HIT, post-HIT, and 24-h post-HIT. The HIT involved four five-minute exhaustive climbing tasks. Eight climbers were assigned to a control group. Assessments consisted of three finger flexor tests: maximum voluntary contraction (MVC), sustained contraction (SCT), and intermittent contraction tests (ICT). During the SCT muscle oxygenation (SmO2) metrics were collected via NIRS sensors on the forearm. The HIT had significant deteriorating effects on all force production metrics (MVC − 18%, SCT − 55%, ICT − 59%). Post-24 h showed significant recovery, which was less pronounced for the endurance tests (MVC − 3%, SCT − 16%, ICT − 22%). SmO2 metrics provided similar results for the SCT with medium to large effect sizes. Minimally attainable SmO2 and resting SmO2 both showed moderate negative correlations with pre-HIT force production respectively; r = − 0.41, P = 0.102; r = − 0.361, P = 0.154. A strong association was found between a loss of force production and change in minimally attainable SmO2 (r = − 0.734, P = 0.016). This study presents novel findings on the deteriorating effects of HIT on finger flexor performance and their oxidative capacity. Specifically, the divergent results between strength and endurance tests should be of interest to coaches and athletes when assessing athlete readiness.
Highlights
Sport climbing is characterized by a highly localized muscular demand for high-intensity work with short intermittent recovery periods [29]
All performance metrics decreased after the high-intensity training (HIT), with partial recovery after 24 h
The novel findings are the dissociation between recovery of maximum voluntary contraction (MVC) after a 24 h time period and both sustained contraction (SCT) and intermittent contraction tests (ICT) in the same time period, with a significant portion of variance being observed explained through a change in SmO2min
Summary
Sport climbing is characterized by a highly localized muscular demand for high-intensity work with short intermittent recovery periods [29]. A better understanding of the effect of climbing-specific high-intensity training (HIT) on physiology and performance is relevant for coaches and athletes to plan training and prepare for competitions. NIRS provides insight into blood volume and oxygenation metrics, including changes in deoxyhemoglobin and deoxymyoglobin (deoxy[heme]) and oxyhemoglobin and oxymyoglobin (oxy[heme]), and total hemoglobin and total myoglobin (total[heme]) under the sensor. From this information, NIRS can estimate muscle oxygen saturation in-vivo (SmO2) [13] and appears to be a highly suitable tool to investigate the local forearm oxygenation of sport climbers. Fryer and colleagues [17] demonstrated that the faster half-time of tissue oxygen resaturation, as a
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
