The Influence Of Ribose Ingestion On Recovery And Performance In Healthy Individuals.

Abstract

PURPOSE: Skeletal muscle adenosine triphosphate (ATP) levels are depleted during and following high intensity exercise. Previous studies have shown that recovery of these lower ATP levels can take days, which ultimately can affect performance. Ribose has been shown to enhance the recovery in ATP; however, how is performance affected with this metabolic recovery? Therefore, we investigated the influence of ingesting 10 g/day of D-ribose (DR) on muscular recovery, performance, and metabolism during and following a multi-day exercise regimen. METHODS: A double blind, crossover study in 18 healthy subjects compared 10 g/day of DR to 10 g/day of dextrose (DEX, control). All subjects completed 2 days of loading with either DR or DEX, followed by 3 days of additional supplemental treatment, as well as undergoing high intensity interval exercise. Exercise assessment protocol consisted of cycling for 60 min (8 min of exercise at 60% and 2 min at 80% VO2max), followed by a 2 min power test evaluation (PO). RESULTS: Mean and peak PO increased from day 1 to day 3 by 2% (p = 0.04) and 6% (p = 0.03), respectively, for DR, but was only maintained with DEX. Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE) was significantly lower for DR than DEX. Subjects were then further assessed between the low and high VO2max values. The lower VO2max subjects had a significant increase in CK (by 57%), as well as a 4% greater increase in HR, and greater RPE with DEX as compared to DR. Further, in the lower VO2max DR subjects, there was a significantly lower exercising HR and RPE (13.1 +/- 1.7 vs. 13.7 +/- 1.5), and an improvement in PO. No differences in HR, CK, BUN, GLUC, or lactate were found between either supplement. However, there was a 40% increase in the main effect of time for CK elevation regardless of treatment. CONCLUSIONS: DR supplementation led to greater performance changes than DEX during and following high intensity interval cycling exercise. Furthermore, upon sub group analysis between VO2max differences revealed additional benefits with DR. DR supplementation within this lower VO2max group resulted in maintenance in exercise performance, as well as potentially lessening muscular cell damage which can greatly influence cellular recovery and subsequent performance.