Physiological and Psychological Responses to a Maximal Swimming Exercise Test in Adolescent Elite Athletes.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Continuously rising performances in elite adolescent athletes requires increasing training loads. This training overload without professional monitoring, could lead to overtraining in these adolescents. METHODS: 31 elite adolescent athletes (boys n = 19, 16 yrs; girls n = 12, 15 yrs) participated in a field-test which contained a unified warm-up and a 200 m maximal freestyle swimming test. Saliva samples for testosterone (T) in boys, estradiol (E) in girls and cortisol (C) in both genders were collected pre-, post- and 30 min post-exercise. Lactate levels were obtained pre- and post-exercise. Brunel Mood Scale, Perceived Stress Scale and psychosomatic symptoms questionnaires were filled out post-exercise. RESULTS: Lactate levels differed between genders (boys pre 1.01 ± 0.26; post 8.19 ± 3.24; girls pre 0.74 ± 0.23; post 5.83 ± 2.48 mmol/L). C levels increased significantly in boys pre- vs. post- (p = 0.009), pre- vs. 30 min post-exercise (p = 0.003). The T level (p = 0.0164) and T/C ratio (p = 0.0004) decreased after field test which draws attention to the possibility of overtraining. Maximal and resting heart rates did not differ between genders; however, heart rate recovery did (boys 29.22 ± 7.4; girls 40.58 ± 14.50 beats/min; p = 0.008). CONCLUSIONS: Our models can be used to explain the hormonal ratio changes (37.5-89.8%). Based on the results this method can induce hormonal response in elite adolescent athletes and can be used to notice irregularities with repeated measurements.