Cardiovascular stress and lactate formation during gymnastic routines

Background. Carried out to investigate cardiovascular and metabolic response during various gymnastic routines [Pommel Horse (PH), Roman Ring (RR), Parallel Bar (PB), Horizontal Bar (HB) and Floor Exercise (FE)]. Methods. Experimental design: comparative and randomized. Setting: general purpose, applicable on gymnastics training. Participants. Five male volunteers drawn from students attending sports coaching course in gymnastics at NIB, Patiala. A mixed population from all over India who had competitive experience of 6 to 10 years. Interventions: no interventions. Measures : presence of heart rate overshooting, high lactate levels and individual characteristics of the gymnastics routines. Results. In all the routines peak HR was much lower than maximum heart rate (HRmax) of the gymnasts. Mean HR was lowest in first set and highest in the final (3rd set) on all the apparatuses. Highest mean HR was recorded in HB followed by FE, RR, PB and PH respectively. After both first and third sets blood lactic acid (La) was highest in FE followed by RR, PB, HB and PH. La levels following the first set were 7.11, 6.77, 6.23, 5.97 and 5.18 mM/l, respectively. Third set values were 10.54, 10.16, 8.95, 8.74 and 8.04 mM/l. Conclusions. (a) Cardiovascular load in various gymnastic routines is considerably less than maximal running; (b) HR overshoot is common at the end of all the men's gymnastic routines ; training evaluation or performance evaluation in gymnastics through heart rate should consider this fact to avoid any misinterpretation; (c) PH is physiologically least demanding among the five while FE and RR are most stressful; (d) repetition of gymnastic exercise routines with short rest pause may lead the gymnast to reach nearer to his lactate tolerance; (e) gymnastics activity is dominated by anaerobic metabolism.