Changes in steroid hormones during an international powerlifting competition
Highlights
► We examine changes in saliva steroids in powerlifters during a World Championship. ► Workouts produce increases in cortisol and DHEA in both genders. ► Increase in testosterone occurs only in men. ► Changes in female gonadal steroids deserve further investigation.
Introduction
The role of adrenal and gonadal steroids [i.e., cortisol, testosterone and dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA)] during exercise and stress situations has attracted substantial attention for three decades. As steroid hormone concentrations can be measured non-invasively in saliva, it is now possible to follow these hormone responses in elite athletes during competitive events without imposing additional stress. Indeed, the correlation between saliva and serum concentrations is high in healthy and pathological subjects both at rest and during exercise [1], [2], [3], [4], [5].
Testosterone, cortisol and DHEA are steroid hormones that are secreted in circadian fashion [6], [7] with the highest concentrations observed in the morning and the lowest in the evening. It must be kept in mind that normal saliva values for cortisol decrease by about 6-fold during the day, from a mean of 15 nmol/L at 8 a.m. to a mean of 4 nmol/L in the early afternoon and 2 nmol/L in late afternoon [6]. For testosterone, the normal saliva values in men decrease from a mean of 400–600 to 150–250 pmol/L in the late afternoon [6], [7], with only a very limited decrease between early and late afternoon [7]. Time of day has no effect on testosterone in women [8] and, to our knowledge, no study has yet examined the daily variations in saliva DHEA.
Numerous studies, conducted primarily in men, have examined blood or saliva cortisol response to exercise and most have shown that plasma or saliva cortisol increases during exercise at relatively high intensity [6], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13] in all investigated sports, independently of the time of day. Few studies, however, have investigated DHEA responses [14], [15], [16]. Testosterone variations during acute exercise appear to be equivocal, underlining how age, gender, and the type, duration, and intensity of the exercise influence hormone concentrations [6], [10], [11], [12], [13], [17], [18], [19], [20], [21], [22], [23]. The relationships between hormone concentrations and performance responses to various exercise tests have been reported in several studies [6], [24], [25], [26], [27], [28] involving jumping, rowing, running, and weightlifting athletes.
However, only two studies [6], [16] have focused on heavy-resistance exercise in the field. In the first study of top-level male athletes during an official national and a simulated weightlifting competition [6], the authors reported no change in saliva testosterone concentrations during competition (mean end-competition: 200 pmol/L) but higher cortisol levels during competition (mean end-competition: 9 nmol/L) than in the simulation, without significant change between before (12 a.m.–1 p.m.) and after the heavy-resistance exercise (4:30 p.m.–7 p.m.). The authors also showed a significant positive correlation (r = 0.67, p < 0.05, n = 13) between the performance and cortisol and concluded that cortisol may be considered as a performance factor in weightlifting. In the second work [16], hormone responses to the bench press were investigated in elite male and female athletes during an official international powerlifting competition. Saliva cortisol concentrations were significantly increased in all subjects after the bench press in the early afternoon (mean weighing: 9 nmol/L; mean end-competition: 20 nmol/L), with no change in saliva testosterone concentrations (mean end-competition for men: 200 pmol/L; for women: 100 pmol/L), whereas weighing DHEA concentrations were significantly increased in women but not in men after the bench press. No significant correlation was found between bench press performance and any of the hormones analyzed. To our knowledge, no study has examined the endocrine repercussions of a complete international powerlifting competition, including the squat, bench and deadlift events, and the potential relationship between steroid hormone concentrations and performance.
Therefore, the two main purposes of this study were to examine (i) the variations in saliva cortisol, DHEA and testosterone in elite male and female powerlifters during a World Championship and (ii) the correlations between hormone and performance parameters in order to determine whether hormone concentrations may be used as performance predicting factors for elite powerlifting athletes. In order to minimize the circadian effect, the entire experiment was conducted during the afternoon between 1 p.m. and 8 p.m.
Section snippets
Subjects
The study was approved by the Institutional Medical Board of the International Powerlifting Federation (IPF) and was carried out during a World Junior Powerlifting Championship in September. The group consisted of 19 adult elite powerlifters, all competing in the championship: 8 men (67.0 ± 3.5 kg; 20.1 ± 0.7 years) and 11 women (59.0 ± 2.0 kg; 19.1 ± 0.8 years). The elite athletes volunteered to participate in the study and gave written consent after being informed of the nature of the experiments. All
Hormone concentration at rest and during exercise (Fig. 1)
Saliva Rest, Weighing and End competition cortisol, DHEA and testosterone concentrations were comparable to those reported in the literature for weightlifters or powerlifters [6], [16].
The ANOVA revealed no significant gender effect on cortisol but a significant gender effect on DHEA and testosterone concentrations. No significant difference in cortisol, testosterone or DHEA was found between the Rest and Weighing values. Cortisol and DHEA concentrations appeared significantly increased at the
Discussion
Studies relating hormonal variations in elite athletes during international competitions are limited, especially in women, mainly because of the difficulty of collecting samples during official sports competitions. To our knowledge, this is the first investigation in which the impact of a World Powerlifiting Championship on saliva steroid hormone has been investigated. In order to minimize the circadian interaction with the cortisol and DHEA levels, we retained only the men and women tested at
Acknowledgements
This project was carried out with the support of the IPF (International Powerlifting Federation). The investigators wish to express their gratitude to the subjects for their dedicated performance. In addition, they likewise thank the referees, the coaches, Alain Lacheze, Cathy Carmeni, Sandra Ferary and Adeline Molina for their expert assistance.
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