Heart Rate and Blood Lactate Concentration Analysis During a High-Level Men's Gymnastics Competition

Abstract

Abstract Seven 18-year-old volunteer French international elite gymnasts participated in a simulation of a competition. Heart rate (HR) was measured by a continuos method and blood lactate concentration (BL) was measured before and 2, 5 and 10 minutes after each gymnastics event. Mean duration of floor, pommel horse, rings, horizontal bars and fix bar exercises was 34.70 + 5.00 s, except vaulting which lasted 5.16 + 0.40 s. High performance gymnasts required a very high HR (179.49 ± 10.39 b.min -1 ) during a very short time. Each event required a specific heart rate range. Mean peak BL value was 5.07 mmol.1 -1 on five apparatuses. Vault was significantly less than those of the other exercises. HR and BL values differed between events. We concluded that vaulting effort provided a recovery effect on the following events and we suppose that an active recovery is useful between events. Key words: bioenergetics - physical fitness - recovery - aerobic - anaerobic Introduction To attain a high performance level, gymnasts begin practising at an early age. They must reach a very high level of strength, flexibility and coordination to perform the variety of complex acrobatic movements. By the 1960s, many authors confirmed that gymnasts were characterised by a low maximal aerobic power and a high strength quality (26, 15, 28, 20). Many others studied the impact of this sport or the rhythmic sportive gymnastics on body and bone development in young females (1, 2, 3, 7, 9, 11, 13, 14, 19, 22, 23). Most of these studies confirmed that gymnastics practice was associated with a late bone development and an ectomorphic tendency, especially in female gymnasts. Rhythmic and female gymnasts have been studied for a long time (1, 2, 13, 14) but no one has explored boys gymnastics' physiological responses since Montpetit in 1976 (20, 21). Boys HR response has not been studied since that date, whereas lactate production has never been studied. Authors who investigated gymnastic physiological responses never studied competitive routines, especially not the vaulting exercise because of its short duration (4, 7, 11, 20, 21, 27). Energy expenditure could not be compared to that of running at 13 km.h