Comparison of acute ingestion of carbohydrate and L- carnitine supplementation on exhaustion time and heart rate variability during recovery from graded exercise in male college athletes

Sport supplementation is aconventionalmethod to prevent of dehydrationand body energystoresdepletion in graded long-term exercise. Acute carbohydrate and L–carnitine supplementation probably effect time to exhaustion and heart rate variablility during recovery from gradedexercise in male college athletes. Fourty male college athletes were randomly recruitedforthis study، and divided into 4 groups (control، carbohydrate، L-carnitine and carbohydrate/L-carnitinesupplementation) and ingested 500 cc supplements، 3 hours before exhaustive exercise. Times to exhaustion، heart rate variability in recovery and ratingof perceived exertion were recorded and analysed. One-way ANOVA was used to analyze exhaustion and variance analysis (4 × 2) for changes in heart rate recovery period. Acute carbohydrate supplementation (P≤0. 05) had significant effect on time to exhaustion compared to L-carnitine. However، acute supplementation of carbohydrate and L-carnitine combination had a agreater effect on time to exhaustion (P≤0. 05). Mean while، separate and combined supplementationhad no significant effects on recovery heart rate variability and rating of perceived exertion. Probably، use of combined carbohydrate and L-carnitine supplementation should be better than seperate carbohydrate or L-carnitine in graded long- term exercise.