Article Text
Abstract
Background/aim To assess and compare measured ventilatory volumes (forced expiratory volume in 1 s (FEV1), peak expirium flow (PEF) and maximal voluntary ventilation (MVV)), ventilatory function capacities (forced vital capacity (FVC) and vital capacity (VC)) and FEV1/VC ratio in a sample of power and endurance elite athletes and their age-matched and sex-matched sedentary control group.
Methods A cross-sectional study was applied on male elite athletes (n=470) who were classified according to the type of the predominantly performed exercise in the following way: group 1: endurance group (EG=270), group 2: power athletes group (SG=200) and group 3: sedentary control group (CG=100). The lung VC, FVC, FEV1, FEV1/FVC ratio, PEF and MVV were measured in all of the observed subjects, who were also classified with regard to body mass index (BMI) and the percentage of the body fat (BF%).
Results The CG had the highest BF% value, while the endurance group had the lowest BMI and BF% value, which is significantly different from the other two groups (p<0.05). The observed values of VC, FVC and FEV1 in the EG were significantly higher than those from the other two groups (p<0.05). There were no differences concerning the observed FEV1/FVC ratio.
Conclusions A continued endurance physical activity leads to adaptive changes in spirometric parameters (VC, FVC and FEV1), highlighting the fact that there is a need for specific consideration of different respiratory ‘pattern’ development in different types of sport, which also has to be further evaluated.
- elite athletes
- spirometry
- lung volumes
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Footnotes
Contributors MZ, TD, RL and BLP conceived the idea and guided experiments. TD, TG and VZ prepared tips/samples and performed experiments. TG conducted all measurements of the athletes. MZ, ZM, MD and MZS discussed about results. TD wrote the manuscript with inputs from other authors. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.
Competing interests None declared.
Patient consent Obtained.
Ethics approval School of Medicine, University of Belgrade.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
Data sharing statement This study does not contain any additional unpublished data that are available to other person or organization.