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Highest exercise load lead to reduction in intrinsic mitochondrial function

Substantial mitochondrial respiratory impairment is included with excessive exercise

23-Mar-2021

Key points from article :

All athletes, if they are trained too much then their legs feel terrible after a while.

Researchers recruited 11 healthy young people for four-week with increasingly intense regimen of sessions.

By monitoring their glucose tolerance and mitochondrial function.

Intrinsic mitochondrial respiration improved during the first two weeks of the workout schedule.

During the toughest week, they displayed insulin resistance and other deleterious metabolic changes.

Glucose tolerance was also dropped between the light-training week and the end of the excessive-training week.

Then the researchers monitored blood glucose levels in 15 elite athletes.

Who weren’t subject to any intervention and in matched, non-athlete controls.

Two groups’ levels over a given 24-hour period were about the same, but the athletes spent more time.

Study coauthor Mikael Flockhart says "it’s not clear where the tolerable limit of training is, especially..."

Research by Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences published in Cell Metabolism.

Mentioned in this article:

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Cell Metabolism

Scientific Journal providing information from many different areas of metabolism.

Filip Larsen

Associate Professor at the Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences, CSO at SVExA

Mikael Flockhart

Researcher at the Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences, GIH

Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences (GIH)

University for sport, physical activity, and health sciences

Topics mentioned on this page:
Exercise, Mitochondria