Effect of detraining on physical fitness and lactate response in teenage girls taekwondo practitioners

Detraining could causes changes in blood lactate response and physical fitness factors. Therefore the aim of this study was to investigate the effect of three-weeks of detraining on blood lactate response to kick exercise and physical fitness factors related to Taekwondo in teenage girls.

Eigtheen taekwondo athlete girls with mean age of 13±1.64 years and taekwondo experience period with 6.07±1.05 years were randomly divided into training (n=9) and detraining (n=9) groups. Dependent variables were measured before and after three weeks in both groups. Detraining groups stopped their training program during the three weeks but training group continued their training program. Blood lactate was measured before and immediately after kick exercise; in this way, after 20 minutes of warm-up, kick exercise (short time, high-intensity exercise) were performed with 3 repetitions, each repetition was included 20 seconds of activity and 20 seconds of recovery. Anaerobic power, agility, muscular power and reaction time were also evaluated with valid tests. Repeated measurement ANOVA and MANCOVA tests were used for statistical analysis of inter group and between groups changes respectively and significant level was considered at P>0.05.

Blood lactate after kick exercise was increased significantly in both groups pre and post 3 weeks (p=0.001), but it was not significantly differ before and after intended three weeks (p=1.000). In detraining group, muscular power (p=0.01), agility (p=0.04) and anaerobic power (p=0.01) decreased significantly after three weeks of detracting as compared to before three weeks detraining but reaction time did not significantly changed (p=0.17).

It seems three weeks of detraining in Taekwondo girls does not induce any change in lactate response to kick exercise and their reaction time but decreases the other skill related physical fitness factors.