title: Postexercise increase of free fatty acids. A qualitative indicator for free fatty acid utilisation during exercise?
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The purpose of this study was to verify the hypothesis that the postexercise increase (PEI) of plasma free fatty acid (FFA) concentrations after cessation of exercise is a suitable qualitative indicator for the FFA utilisation during the foregoing exercise.
  
  
  METHODS
  Fourteen, 17 and 23 healthy subjects participated in 3 test series performing several prolonged exercise protocols (PEP) on a bicycle ergometer. During and after cessation of the PEP heart frequency, lactate and FFA were measured.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Fasting resulted in an increase of PEI (90%, p<0.05) and the synergistic use of upper body muscles during cycling caused a significant rise of PEI compared to "regular" cycling (39%, p<0.01). Increasing workload step by step produced continuously rising PEI (p<0.05), only from 42% to 50% of maximal workload PEI decreased by 17% (p=n.s.).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The results support the hypothesis that PEI is a suitable qualitative indicator for FFA utilisation during a foregoing exercise. Furthermore the results indicate that there is a maximum of FFA utilisation in the legs at 40% of maximum workload during cycling and that the upper body muscles contribute substantially to total body FFA turnover at high inten-sities, an aspect to which possibly too little attention has been paid to when quantifying FFA turnover during cycling.
authors.affiliation: Sportmedizin, University Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany. christian.vobejda@uni-bielefeld.de
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Vobejda
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Simon
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Zimmermann
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001642:Bicycling / Q000502:physiology*; D005080:Exercise Test; D005215:Fasting / Q000502:physiology; D005230:Fatty Acids, Nonesterified / Q000097:blood* / Q000378:metabolism; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D035002:Lower Extremity / Q000502:physiology; D008297:Male; D018482:Muscle, Skeletal / Q000502:physiology; D005082:Physical Exertion / Q000502:physiology*; D013997:Time Factors; D034941:Upper Extremity / Q000502:physiology
chemical_list: D005230:Fatty Acids, Nonesterified