Recovery on Serum Lactate and Blood Enzymes (LDH) and (CPK) in Male Rock Climbers

It is well established that the active continuous recovery is preferred to passive recovery. But the active period of this recovery is long (20-60 minutes) and the intensity is not controlled. Furthermore, most severe trial exercises need short-term active recovery for better performance so that the athletes can return more rapidly to their normal state and more desirable performance. However, this type of recovery is not thoroughly known concerning time, intensity and type of activity. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of short duration (3 minutes) active recovery for repeated climbing trial on blood lactate, LDH and CPK concentration in young male elite climbers. For this purpose, 10 elite male rock climbers (age=24±2.92 years), (weight=60±6.19 kg), (height=173±5.73 cm) and (BMI=19±2.98) volunteered to participate in this study. The subjects participated in two tests with a 5-day interval; in the first test, each climber completed four 2-minute climbing trials and 3 minutes of passive recovery; in the second test, each climber completed the same trials but 3 minutes of active recovery. During each 3 minutes of active recovery, every subject ran on a treadmill with 45% VO2max. 2 minutes were considered for blood sampling before each climbing trial. To measure blood lactate, blood samples were collected from earlobe capillaries and for LDH and CPK enzymes, blood samples were gathered from antecubital vein collected during each refocusing phase. Blood samples were taken following the warm-up before the first climbing and after each recovery. The results showed a significant difference between active and passive recovery conditions in lactate concentration, LDH (P<0.005) and CPK (P<0.039) blood enzymes. These factors were lower across all four climbing trials in active recovery. After each active recovery, climbers started the next trial with a lower arterial lactate concentration, LDH and CPK than passive recovery.