Oxidative capacity and glycogen content increase more in arm than leg muscle in sedentary women after intense training

Abstract

The hypothesis that the adaptive capacity is higher in human upper- than lower-body skeletal muscle was tested. Furthermore, the hypothesis that more pronounced adaptations in upper-body musculature can be achieved by "low-volume high-intensity" compared with "high-volume low-intensity" exercise training was evaluated. A group of sedentary premenopausal women aged 45 ± 6 yr (± SD) with expected high adaptive potential in both upper- and lower-extremity muscle groups participated. After random allocation to high-intensity swimming (HIS, n = 21), moderate-intensity swimming (MOS, n = 21), soccer (SOC, n = 21) or a nontraining control group (CON, n = 20), the training groups completed three workouts per week for 15 wk. Resting muscle biopsies were obtained from the vastus lateralis muscle and deltoideus muscle before and after the intervention. After the training intervention, a larger (P < 0.05) increase existed in deltoideus muscle of the HIS group compared with vastus lateralis muscle of the SOC group for citrate synthase maximal activity (95 ± 89 vs. 27 ± 34%), citrate synthase protein expression (100 ± 29 vs. 31 ± 44%), 3-hydroxyacyl-CoA dehydrogenase maximal activity (35 ± 43 vs. 3 ± 25%), muscle glycogen content (63 ± 76 vs. 20 ± 51%), and expression of mitochondrial complex II, III, and IV. Additionally, HIS caused higher (P< 0.05) increases than MOS in deltoideus muscle citrate synthase maximal activity, citrate synthase protein expression, and muscle glycogen content. In conclusion, the deltoideus muscle has a higher adaptive potential than the vastus lateralis muscle in sedentary women, and "high-intensity low-volume" training is a more efficient regime than "low-intensity high-volume" training for increasing the aerobic capacity of the deltoideus muscle.

Muscle variables of importance for physiological performance in competitive football

“…In multiple sprint sports such as football the recovery from intense exercise is essential for performance (Mohr et al 2005), and the recovery capacity has been linked to the muscle oxidative capacity (Bangsbo 1994) and is upregulated after high-intensity training regimes (Burgomaster et al 2005;Nordsborg et al 2015). In the present study no relationship was found between neither CS or HAD activity nor cytochrome c oxidase IV protein expression and any of the high-intensity game variables.…”

“…Moreover, HAD and CS have recently been shown to display different adaptation patterns to exercise training (Nordsborg et al 2015).…”

High-Intensity Training Improves Exercise Performance in Elite Women Volleyball Players During a Competitive Season

“…Thus, additional highintensity intermittent training carried out during the competitive season markedly facilitates fatigue resistance during repeated intense actions, which is likely to be highly important in an intense intermittent sport such as volleyball [37,40]. In the present study no physiological measurements were obtained, but several studies during the last decade have shown very large effects on muscle oxidative capacity [8,12,33], muscle ion transports [29,39], type IIx muscle fibre area [16] and muscle oxygen uptake kinetics [19] after high intensity training, which all are suggested to affect repeated sprint performance.…”

Comparison of the inflammatory and stress response between sprint interval swimming and running

“…Nevertheless, there are notable differences in upper and lower limb involvement between swimming and running. For instance, when high‐intensity swimming is directly compared to high‐intensity soccer, metabolic adaptations differ between arms and legs . Moreover, they are performed in different environmental media, so it is reasonable to suggest that these 2 exercise modes elicit different metabolic responses.…”