The influence of training and maturity status on girls’ responses to short-term, high-intensity upper- and lower-body exercise

A maturational threshold has been suggested to be present in young peoples’ responses to exercise, with significant influences of training status evidenced only above this threshold. The presence of such a threshold has not been investigated for short-term, high-intensity exercise. To address this, we investigated the relationship between swim-training status and maturity on the power output, pulmonary gas exchange, and metabolic responses to an upper- and lower-body Wingate anaerobic test (WAnT). Girls at 3 stages of maturity participated:, prepubertal (Pre: 8 trained (T), 10 untrained (UT)), pubertal (Pub: 9 T, 15 UT), and postpubertal (Post: 8 T, 10 UT). At all maturity stages, T exhibited higher peak power (PP) and mean power (MP) during upper-body exercise (PP: Pre, T, 163 ± 20 vs. UT, 124 ± 29; Pub, T, 230 ± 42 vs. UT, 173 ± 41; Post, T, 245 ± 41 vs. UT, 190 ± 40 W; MP: Pre, T, 130 ± 23 vs. UT, 85 ± 26; Pub, T, 184 ± 37 vs. UT, 123 ± 38; Post, T, 200 ± 30 vs. UT, 150 ± 15 W; all p < 0.05) but not lower-body exercise, whilst the fatigue index was significantly lower in T for both exercise modalities. Irrespective of maturity, the oxidative contribution, calculated by the area under the oxygen uptake response profile, was not influenced by training status. No interaction was evident between training status and maturity, with similar magnitudes of difference between T and UT at all 3 maturity stages. These results suggest that there is no maturational threshold which must be surpassed for significant influences of training status to be manifest in the “anaerobic” exercise performance of young girls.