Abstract
Due to physiological and morphological differences, younger and older athletes may recover differently from training loads. High-intensity interval training (HIIT) protocols are useful for studying the progression of recovery. It was the objective of this study to determine age differences in performance and recovery following different HIIT protocols. Methods: 12 younger (24.5 ± 3.7 years) and 12 older (47.3 ± 8.6 years) well-trained cyclists and triathletes took part in this study. Between the age groups there were no significant differences in relative peak power to fat-free mass, maximal heart rate (HR), training volume, and VO2max-percentiles (%). Participants performed different HIIT protocols consisting of 4 × 30 s Wingate tests with different active rest intervals (1, 3, or 10 min). Peak and average power, lactate, HR, respiratory exchange ratio (RER), subjective rating of perceived exertion (RPE), and recovery (Total Quality Recovery scale, TQR) were assessed. Results: During the different HIIT protocols, metabolic, cardiovascular, and subjective recovery were similar between the two groups. No significant differences were found in average lactate concentration, peak and average power, fatigue (%), %HRmax, RER, RPE, and TQR values between the groups (p > 0.05). Conclusion: The findings of this study indicate that recovery following HIIT does not differ between the two age groups. Furthermore, older and younger participants displayed similar lactate kinetics after the intermittent exercise protocols.
Highlights
Recovery from exercise is essential for continuous performance improvement [1,2]
In PP, significant differences were found between Wingate anaerobic test (WAnT) one and WAnTs four for both groups in the one, three, and ten-minute recovery protocols
The three-minute recovery protocol showed no significant differences in fatigue (%)
Summary
Recovery from exercise is essential for continuous performance improvement [1,2]. Due to morphological and physiological changes occurring during aging and age-related alterations in performance capacity, younger and older athletes may recover at different rates from physical exercise and training loads [3,4,5].Age-related physiological and morphological changes in the muscular system include the selective loss of fast muscle fibers and motor units, along with a decrease in muscle cross-sectional area and number of satellite cells, and a change in muscle architecture [6,7]. Due to morphological and physiological changes occurring during aging and age-related alterations in performance capacity, younger and older athletes may recover at different rates from physical exercise and training loads [3,4,5]. The maximum lactic acid production rate, which is determined by the performance capacity or trainability of the fast muscle fibers [10], decreases with age [11]. Peak blood lactate levels of trained subjects are considerably higher than those reported for untrained subjects, anaerobic energy production from glycolysis declines with older age. This may be a factor responsible for the deterioration in sprint performance [12]
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