Diversity in athlete’s response to strength effort in normobaric hypoxia: Serum DSC study

Abstract

The hypoxia may be used during exercise training sessions in humans with the aim of improving athletic performance. The effect of normobaric hypoxia strength training on thermal properties of blood serum has been evaluated in a group of 12 male and female athletes using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). Each athlete was tested under normoxic and simulated hypoxic (4000 m, FiO2 = 13% and 5000 m, FiO2 = 11.3%) conditions during squats with a barbell (70% 1RM) exercise. A substantial inter-individual variation in the effects of hypoxia on serum DSC curves has been observed. The effect of exercising in normobaric hypoxia has been found greater for men than for the women. When the work intensity is high enough, the strength exercise in hypoxia can trigger an acute-phase response. Calorimetric and biochemical data have shown that men’s exercising in hypoxia could increase the concentration of acute-phase proteins: haptoglobin and/or C-reactive protein. Our results suggest that 24-h period of rest is sufficient to return to the pre-exercise state after normoxic as well as hypoxic training session for both men and women. The recovery seems to be faster after the training in normobaric hypoxia conditions than in normoxia in the male but not in the female group of athletes.