Applied Physiology of Sports Performance

Week Three
Sprint and Intermittent Events

Key Points of Sprinting

 Muscle fibre type (%FT/ST), body mass (reflects muscle mass) and technique will all affect
peak power in a single sprint.
 Fatigue can affect performance in longer and repeated sprints (different events/sports)
o E.g. around 30sec in football, all influenced by fatigue.
 Key point: only 25mmol per kg muscle (dry weight); 30sec sprint requires 300mmol’s ATP –
resynthesis KEY.
 Ion fluxes can cause fatigue because of its affect on the excitation contraction coupling
process.
 Low PCr and low pH may cause fatigue by inhibiting ATP resynthesis and the removal of the
products (ADP+H++phosphate) of ATP hydrolysis.

How to investigate sprinting in the lab (methods)

Cycle ergometer
 Was originally used for children, developed by Bar-Or and Cummings in the 1970s.
 Idea is you are maximally pedalling then a load is applied.
 Lakomy (1986) developed a way to take the moment of inertia of the flywheel into account.
 Modification to take into account of acceleration of the flywheel.
 Power output correctly measured
 Watts bike – latest bike developed with British Cycling (very accurate).

Treadmill sprinting

 Lakomy 1987 developed the Woodway model A/B treadmill. It was non-motorised and was
used in hospitals for rehab work.
 It was measured to perform similar metabolic responses to free sprinting and similar
numbers of strides.
 You could therefore measure belt speed and power output; big advances, analysis could
now be done in the lab and far more samples could be taken.
Metabolic responses to sprinting

Blood lactate response

 30 second sprint
 ST: Sprint trained
 ET: Endurance trained
 High values = glycolysis has been
effective, high contribution to energy
supply.
 Lactic acid produced in the muscle
immediately dissociates (lactate +
hydrogen ions) in the blood.

Muscle biopsies
 Post sprint: tissue (100mg muscle) plunged into liquid nitrogen, to stop metabolic activity.
 Thus they can analyse the muscle as if it had just finished the sprint.

pH
 Blood pH started at 7.39 and went down to 7.04 post-exercise (Neville et al, 1996).
 Muscle pH started at 7.05 and went down to 6.72 post-exercise (Bogdanis et al, 1996).

This can be explained by an increase in hydrogen ion activity in the muscle which lowers pH. A lower
pH (acidic) inhibits enzyme activity slowing glycolysis and resynthesis of ATP – Fatigue.

Muscle Metabolites
At Rest After 10s Cycle Sprint
Glycogen 404 330
PCr 81 36
ATP 26 20
Lactate 5 51

 For every 1 mmol of glycogen broken down, we resynthesise 3mmol’s ATP (through
glycolytic pathways)
 For each mmol of PCr used, 1mmol of ATP is resynthesised.
 ATP resynthesises very quickly, but is not quite instant.
 To calculate over ATP deficit: Glycogen deficit (X3) + PCr deficit (X1) + ATP deficit (X1)
 Lactate (by-product of glycolysis): can calculate ATP used via this. 3 mmols of ATP produced
for every 2 of lactate. NOT VERY ACCURATE.

Aerobic Contribution
 Oxygen uptake can be around 2.7-3.2litres per minute
 29-34% contribution to the first sprint, this figure being dependant on muscle mass.
 This figure will increases with sprint repeats.
 Events are not aerobic or anaerobic; all have elements of both, refer to them as what your
actually doing.
Fatigue
 ‘Inability of the total organism to maintain a required or expected power output@
 “A built in protective mechanism” (Edwards, 1981)

E.g. pH dropping with exercise, if fatigue not present, pH would continue to drop which
would be associated with many dangers.

Site of Fatigue
 No strong evidence for central fatigue.
 Peripheral: Maximum voluntary contraction force of the adductor pillicis was similar to that
obtained by electrical stimulation for up to 3 min and quadriceps contractions for 30-60s
(same decline in force).
 Beelen (1995) showed that electrical stimulation has no effect on isokinetic cycling, until
there is an increase in fatigue. MVC drops then increase.
 Suggests more peripheral fatigue.
 Dynamic exercise of a short duration at or near maximal intensity, it seems that central
factors of fatigue can be disregarded, as the maximal voluntary force generated is similar to
that attained when muscles are electrically stimulated using surface electrodes. (Beelen et
al, 1995).

Problems with Excitation-contraction coupling

pH
 pH is lower during exercise because to resynthesise PCr, H + ions are released which lowers
pH.
 Sarcoplasmic reticulum binds more calcium when pH is lowered.
 At low pH the calcium affinity for troponin is reduced as H + competes for binding sites.
 This displaces the calcium ions, meaning there is no proper link between actin and myosin
sites.
 Power in the muscle recovers fairly quickly following a 30s sprint which leads to suggestions
that pH is not as significant in excitation contraction coupling. It is however more important
with enzyme activity coupling.

Ion Fluxes
 Potassium leaves the cell, sodium enters (will lead to more problems with ECC)
 This movement of potassium leads to de-polarisation in the resting membrane potential
(around 20mV).
 This inactivates sodium channels (they shut), which means it’s more difficult to generate an
action potential.
 The absolute result is that there is less calcium released with each action potential, meaning
a decrease in isometric force.

Potassium regulation
 A study done my Mckenna (1993) (7 weeks cycle sprint training)
 Muscle ATPase concentration increased by 16% (the enzyme corrects the sodium imbalance,
sodium increases = a better control of ion fluxes with sprint training.
 Exercise increase in plasma K+ reduced by 19% (potassium outside the cell lowered)
Peak power output (PPO) achieved in a 6s sprint performed after a 30s maximal all-out effort

Recovery interval between sprints 1 and 2 (s)

1 2 6
5% body weight 425 468 519
resistance
7.5% body weight 478 503 495
resistance

This shows the rapid recovery of PPO in a matter of seconds.

Energy supply problems

Type 1 Type 2
PCr Gly PCr Gly
Rest 79 399 90 480
30s sprint 1.97 2.57 2.48 4.21