Critical determinants of combined sprint and endurance performance: an integrative analysis from muscle fiber to the human body

Abstract

Optimizing physical performance is a major goal in current physiology. However, basic understanding of combining high sprint and endurance performance is currently lacking. This study identifies critical determinants of combined sprint and endurance performance using multiple regression analyses of physiologic determinants at different biologic levels. Cyclists, including 6 international sprint, 8 team pursuit, and 14 road cyclists, completed a Wingate test and 15-km time trial to obtain sprint and endurance performance results, respectively. Performance was normalized to lean body mass 2/3 to eliminate the influence of body size. Performance determinants were obtained from whole-body oxygen consumption, blood sampling, knee-extensor maximal force, muscle oxygenation, wholemuscle morphology, and muscle fiber histochemistry of musculus vastus lateralis. Normalized sprint performance was explained by percentage of fast-type fibers and muscle volume (R 2 = 0.65; P < 0.001) and normalized endurance performance by performance oxygen consumption (Vȯ 2 ), mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration, and muscle oxygenation (R 2 = 0.92; P < 0.001). Combined sprint and endurance performance was explained by gross efficiency, performance Vȯ 2 , and likely by muscle volume and fascicle length (P = 0.056; P = 0.059). High performance Vȯ 2 related to a high oxidative capacity, high capillarization 3 myoglobin, and small physiologic cross-sectional area (R 2 = 0.67; P < 0.001). Results suggest that fascicle length and capillarization are important targets for training to optimize sprint and endurance performance simultaneously.-Van der Zwaard, S., van der Laarse, W. J., Weide, G., Bloemers, F. W., Hofmijster, M. J., Levels, K., Noordhof, D. A., de Koning, J. J., de Ruiter, C. J., Jaspers, R. T. Critical determinants of combined sprint and endurance performance: an integrative analysis from muscle fiber to the human body. FASEB J. 32, 2110FASEB J. 32, -2123FASEB J. 32, (2018 Many sports require a combination of sprint and endurance performance. During the past decades, physiologic determinants of physical performance have been the subject of intensive investigation (e.g., in cycling, 1-11). Studies focused on determinants of either sprint (e.g., 8-18) or endurance performance (e.g., 1-7, 19-23), even though physical performance is rarely a dichotomous function of only sprint or only endurance. Generally, a limited number of whole-body determinants of sprint or endurance performance have been studied, although there are many physical performance determinants at different levels (i.e., molecular, cellular, whole-muscle, organ, and whole ABBREVIATIONS: 3D, 3-dimensional; CAF, capillaries around the fiber; CD, capillary density; C/F, capillary-to-fiber ratio; FCSA, fiber cross-sectional area; fVȯ 2max , fiber maximal oxygen consumption; [Hb], hemoglobin concentration; Hct, hematocrit; [HHbMb], deoxygenated hemoglobin and myoglobin concentration; iSDH activity, spatially integrated SDH activity, SDH activity 3 FCSA; KE, k...

Muscle morphology of the vastus lateralis is strongly related to ergometer performance, sprint capacity and endurance capacity in Olympic rowers

“…The difference between sexes is likely due to reduced oxygen supply in females because of their lower haemoglobin concentrations (Mitchell et al, 1992). Our cross-sectional results indicate an inverse relationship between normalized endurance and sprint capacity in oarsmen that is consistent with the inverse relationship between muscle fibre maximal oxygen consumption and fibre cross-sectional area (Van der Zwaard et al, 2018;Van Wessel et al, 2010).…”

“…When divided by body mass, maximal oxygen consumption and Wingate peak power were negatively related in males and were not significantly related in females (r = −0.68 and r = −0.60, respectively, Figure 3(A)). Maximal oxygen consumption and peak power normalized to lean body mass 2/3 were not related in females, but showed an inverse relationship in male rowers (r = −0.94, 10♂, Figure 3(B)) consistent with the inverse relationship between muscle fibre maximal oxygen consumption and fibre cross-sectional area (Van der Zwaard et al, 2018;Van Wessel et al, 2010). Maximal oxygen consumption per lean body mass 2/3 was not significantly related to physiological cross-sectional area (r = 0.28, n = 15), muscle volume (r = 0.22) or fascicle length (r = 0.13).…”

“…Maximal oxygen consumption, is one of the main determinants of endurance capacity (Joyner & Coyle, 2008;Van der Zwaard et al, 2018), was obtained from a maximal incremental test to voluntary exhaustion. The test consisted of a 7 × 4 min exercise protocol with 1-min rest between blocks on the Concept II ergometer (Model D).…”

“…Combining high sprint and endurance capacity is challenging. Increasing both muscle fibre size and muscle fibre oxidative capacity is strongly endeavoured, but also difficult, as these are inversely related across species (including untrained humans) (Van Wessel, de Haan, van der Laarse, & Jaspers, 2010), within animal species (Sieck, Zhan, Prakash, Daood, & Watchko, 1995) and within well-trained competitive cyclists (Van der Zwaard et al, 2018). In addition, training-induced muscle adaptations are conflicting.…”

“…Physiological cross-sectional area increases with muscle fibre hypertrophy in response to resistance training (Folland & Williams, 2007). Muscle fibre cross-sectional area is, however, inversely related to muscle fibre maximal oxygen consumption (Van der Zwaard et al, 2018;Van Wessel et al, 2010). This suggests that enlarging the fibre cross-sectional area not only increases pennation angle (Huijing, 1998), but also constrains oxygen diffusion (as it increases the diffusion distance).…”