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 only evidenced 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 upper (UP) and lower body (LO) Wingate Anaerobic Test (WAnT). Girls at three stages of maturity: pre-pubertal (Pre: 8 trained (T) 10 untrained (UT)); pubertal (Pub: 9 T, 15 UT); and post-pubertal (Post: 8 T, 10 UT) participated. At all maturity stages, T exhibited higher peak power (PP) and mean power (MP) during UP (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