The effects on oxidative stress and antioxidant levels of different endurance training methods

The aim of the study was to investigate the effects on oxidative stress and antioxidant levels of different endurance training methods. Thirty eight male students from Physical Education and Sports voluntarily served as subjects for this study. All subjects were nonsmokers, didn?t participate in regular exercise, active as recreative and didn?t use any vitamin tablets. Subjects were divided into three groups as continuous running (n=13), intermittent running (n=12) and control group (n=13). The control group wasn?t taken in any programs, while a training program was carried out on training groups three times a week during 8 weeks. Blood samples collected at rest and after exhaustive exercise before and after 8 weeks, were analysed for the determination of plasma malondialdehyde (MDA), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), glutathione peroxidase (GPx) and catalase (CAT). There was no significant differences between pre and post training of rest and exhaustive MDA values of training groups. Continuous running decreased MDA values after exhaustive exercise at the end of 8 weeks. While exhaustive exercise increases significantly LDH values in all groups only before training, both training methods have decreased significantly LDH values at the end of 8 weeks. Exhaustive exercise didn?t effect significantly GPx values for all groups. While continuous running increased significantly rest and exhaustive GPx values, intermittent running increased significantly only rest GPx values. While continuous running decreased significantly rest CAT values, it didn?t effect exhaustive CAT values. However, intermittent running decreased significantly both rest CAT values and exhaustive CAT values. In addition, continuous running increased significantly CAT values after exhaustive exercise at the end of 8 weeks. As a result, it could be concluded that regular endurance training made strong antioxidant system, decreased lipid peroxidation and LDH activity and so it could decrease possible tissue damage. In addition, it could be said that continuous running activated antioxidant enzymes more than intermittent running and it was more efficient to prevent lipid peroxidation which occurs after exhaustive exercise but it wasn?t significant statistically. Key words: Endurance training, oxidative stress, antioxidant.