Elite Olympic Boxing Specific Warm-up And Anaerobic Metabolic Biomarker: Are We Preparing Or Depleting Our Athletes?

INTRODUCTION: Metabolic demands and specific pathways knowledge are crucial to determine training strategies and performance and those are sports specific. Training logs - Preparation (General and Specific) and Competitive (Pre-Competition and Competition), should be structured on a multifactorial matter focusing on details to correlate timing strategies to clinical and fitness responses. During Competitive phase, warm-up is crucial and may affect performance on a positive or negative way. PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to analyze Lactate levels before and after a warm-up protocol in elite boxing athletes from Brazilian Olympic National Team. METHODS: 11 elite athletes (7 males, 4 females; 25,5 ± 3 yrs) were submitted toa maximal sport specific test (Olympic Boxing: 3 rounds, 3 minutes duration with 1 minute interval between in males and 4 rounds, 2 minutes duration with 1 minute interval between in females) preceded by specific warm-up protocol (5 minutes duration in males and females). Blood analyses (capillary and venous) were performed for acute and chronic stress biomarkers, being Lactate the focus of this study. Student’s t test or Wilcoxon test was utilized for statistical analyses according data distribution (p < 0.05). RESULTS: Lactate levels were 1,8 ± 0,5 mmol.L-1 elevating to 4,6 ± 0,9 mmol.L-1 before and after warm-up, respectively. Basal levels of Lactate were lower in females than males (1,1 ± 0,2 mmol.L-1 x 1,9 ± 0,4 mmol.L-1) and pre x post warm-up elevation were higher in males males than females (5,1 ± 1,6 mmol.L-1 x 4,1 ± 0,9 mmol.L-1). CONCLUSIONS: Weight-based categories sports, such as boxing, demands specific evaluations criteria regarding training, competition and nutritional patterns. Applied behaviors, such as dehydration and malnutrition, leads to decrease in performance, despite health issues. The datas suggests that warm-up protocols may induce metabolic detriments prior specific competition, depleting some metabolic pathways and increasing some acute fatigue biomarker. Besides increasing body temperature to optimize sports performance, obility, stability and muscle pre-activation should be part of a warm-up protocol, and intensity is an important matter preventing fatigue while in competition.