title: The relationship between blood lactate and heart rate responses to swim bench exercise and women's competitive water polo.
abstract: The aim of this study was to explore the relationship between physiological responses to dry-land testing and to water polo playing. Eight female water polo players (mean+/-s: age 26.7+/-5.7 years, height 169+/-6 cm, body mass 65.3+/-7.0 kg) participated in two assessments. The first involved a discontinuous incremental arm test to exhaustion on an isokinetic swim bench. Blood lactate was determined from finger-prick blood samples and heart rate was recorded at increasing exercise intensities. The highest (peak) values for blood lactate (5.1+/-0.2 mmol l(-1)), exercise intensity (79+/-5.2 W) and heart rate (146+/-6 beats min(-1)) were recorded at exhaustion. Also, the exercise intensity and heart rate at a blood lactate concentration of 4 mmol l(-1) were established. The second assessment involved determination of blood lactate and heart rate immediately after each quarter of a different water polo game for each subject. The mean (+/-s(x)) blood lactate and heart rate for each quarter of the game were as follows: 3.5+/-0.4, 4.3+/-0.5, 4.3+/-0.7 and 4.6+/-0.5 mmol l(-1); 138+/-10, 149+/-12, 151+/-9 and 154+/-8 beats min(-1), respectively. None of the peak values on the swim bench correlated with blood lactate or heart rate responses to game-playing. However, the mean exercise intensity at 4 mmol l(-1) lactate (64+/-5 W) correlated with the fourth quarter values of both blood lactate concentration (r=-0.82, P=0.01) and heart rate (r=-0.93, P< 0.001). These results show that submaximal metabolic responses to exercise on a swim bench are closely correlated with metabolic responses to water polo game-playing.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Physics, University of Sheffield, UK.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Konstantaki
authors.forename: E A
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Trowbridge
authors.forename: I L
authors.initials: IL
authors.lastname: Swaine
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D003163:Competitive Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D005080:Exercise Test; D017079:Exercise Tolerance; D005260:Female; D006339:Heart Rate / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D019344:Lactic Acid / Q000097:blood*; D012044:Regression Analysis; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D013550:Swimming / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D019344:Lactic Acid