Effects of high-intensity interval training on anaerobic power and cardiorespiratory system adaptations in female canoe polo players

Background: Investigating the effects of six weeks of intense interval training on cardiorespiratory indices and anaerobic capacity of semi-professional canoe polo players.

Methods: 16 semi-professional female canoe polo players (age = 26 ± 4.5 years) volunteered to participate in this study. Before the experiment, participants completed an incremental test to evaluate aerobic power and related physiological variables. On a separate testing day, they completed an upper-body Wingate test to determine peak and average power output. Then they were randomly assigned to paddling-based HIIT, or a control group (CON). The Shapiro-Wilk test was used to test the normality and Levene’s test was used to assess the homogeneity of variances. The data were analyzed using a two-factor mixed analysis of variance (ANOVA) with the between factor “group” (HIIT and CON) and repeated factor “time” (pretraining, post-training). Significant interactions or main effects were subsequently analyzed using Tukey’s honestly significant difference post hoc test.

Results: Following the experiment, a significant (p ≤ 0.05) improvement was observed in peak oxygen uptake (V̇O2peak), the velocity at V̇O2peak (vV̇O2peak), O2 pulse, maximal ventilation (V̇E), respiratory frequency (Rf), peak power output (PPO), and average power output (APO) in response to HIIT. Also, the magnitude of changes in the mentioned variables was significantly (p ≤ 0.05) greater in the HIIT group when compared to the CON group.

Conclusions: Results showed that a 6-week paddling-based HIIT performed three times a week is correlated to improvements in cardiorespiratory system adaptations and anaerobic power in semi-professional female canoe polo players.