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Investigating the adaptation of muscle oxygenation to resistance training for elders and young men using near-infrared spectroscopy

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this study was to investigate the differences in resistance training adaptation on muscle oxygenation between young and elderly subjects. Groups of eleven trained young, untrained young, trained elderly, and untrained elderly (UTE) were recruited.

Methods

Muscle oxygenation of the vastus lateralis muscle during 20 % maximal voluntary isometric contraction was observed using near-infrared spectroscopy. The oxygen saturation (SpO2) kinetics in the contraction and recovery phases was modeled with a tangential model to extract ΔSpO2 and inflection time (IF). The median frequencies of SpO2 data representing the change of tissue oxygenation oscillation were compared.

Results

The ΔSpO2 values for the trained groups (12.00 ± 7.86 %) were significantly higher than those for the untrained groups (5.91 ± 4.36 %, P < 0.05), and those for the young groups (11.63 ± 7.52 %) were significantly higher than those for the older groups (6.29 ± 4.70 %, P < 0.05). In the recovery phase, the IF was significantly longer for the elderly groups (10.32 ± 4.39 s, P < 0.05) than that for the young groups (6.31 ± 3.69 s). The median frequency of tissue oxygenation oscillation was significantly lower for the TE group (0.41 ± 0.12 Hz, P < 0.05) than that for the UTE group (0.57 ± 0.13 Hz).

Conclusions

The increased ΔSpO2 in trained groups during muscle contraction may be due to lower microvascular O2 pressure. The lower median frequency for the TE group indicates that tissue oxygenation oscillation significantly trended toward low-frequency oscillation, possibly resulting from the enhancement of vascular function.

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Abbreviations

FFT:

Fast Fourier transform

IF:

Inflection time

MVC:

Maximal voluntary contraction

NIRS:

Near-infrared spectroscopy

SD:

Standard deviation

SpO2 :

Oxygen saturation

TE:

Trained elderly

TY:

Trained young

UTE:

Untrained elderly

UTY:

Untrained young

VL:

Vastus lateralis

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the Institute of Physical Education, Health and Leisure Studies, for assisting with subject recruitment. We would also like to thank the National Science Council of Taiwan for financially supporting this work under grants NSC 100-2410-H-006-077 and NSC 100-2321-B-006-018.

Conflict of interest

The authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biomedical Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, No 1. Ta-Hsueh Rd, Tainan, 701, Taiwan

    Tai-You Lin, Ting-Chuan Ho & Jia-Jin J. Chen

  2. Institute of Physical Education, Health and Leisure Studies, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, 701, Taiwan

    Linda L. Lin

  3. National Applied Research Laboratories, Taipei, 106, Taiwan

    Jia-Jin J. Chen

  4. Medical Device Innovation Center, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, 701, Taiwan

    Jia-Jin J. Chen

Authors
  1. Tai-You Lin
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  2. Linda L. Lin
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  3. Ting-Chuan Ho
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  4. Jia-Jin J. Chen
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jia-Jin J. Chen.

Additional information

Communicated by Michael Lindinger.

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Lin, TY., Lin, L.L., Ho, TC. et al. Investigating the adaptation of muscle oxygenation to resistance training for elders and young men using near-infrared spectroscopy. Eur J Appl Physiol 114, 187–196 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-013-2763-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-013-2763-z

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