A metabolic comparison of isokinetic and free sprinting

• Main Author: Roberts, Gregory Alan
• Language: English
• Published: 2008
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/1433

The purpose of this study was to examine the Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption (EPOC) and peak blood lactate responses of sprinters following exhaustive treadmill running, maximal isokinetic and free sprinting. Eight university sprinters (mean: age = 24.8 yrs., ht. = 178.9 cm., wt. = 74.9 kg.) performed a 2 minute anaerobic speed test (AST) and tethered isokinetic and free sprinting protocols consisting of five second maximal repetitions separated by ten second active recoveries. A five repetition isokinetic set was compared to five and ten repetition free sprint sets. A correlation (r = +0.87) was calculated between the EPOC and peak blood lactate values over the four experimental protocols. Tukey's post hoc comparisons determined significantly different corrected EPOC (HSD = 2.04, α < 0.05) and peak blood lactate (HSD = 1.72, α < 0.05) cell means between the 2 minute AST (15.16 ± 2.59 Litres; 14.83 ± 1.21 mmol/L) and the other three protocols: the 5 repetition anaerobic power master (APM) (11.38 ± 2.72 Litres; 12.77 ± 1.97 mmol/L), the 10 repetition free sprint (9.88 ± 2.80 Litres; 11.25 ± 2.15 mmol/L) and the 5 repetition free sprint (9.09 ± 2.51 Litres; 9.83 ± 3.09 mmol/L). Additionally, significance was between the 5 repetition APM condition and the 5 repetition free sprint condition. These findings suggest that five, 5 second isokinetic sprinting repetitions require more work in less time and thereby produce a metabolic demand similar to ten, 5 second free sprinting repetitions.