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Abstract
Background
Tennis tournaments often involve playing several consecutive matches interspersed with short periods of recovery.
Objective
The objective of this study was firstly to assess the impact of several successive tennis matches on the physical performance of competitive players and secondly to evaluate the potential of sports drinks to minimize the fatigue induced by repeated matches.
Methods
This was a crossover, randomized controlled study. Eight male regionally-ranked tennis players participated in this study. Players underwent a series of physical tests to assess their strength, speed, power and endurance following the completion of three tennis matches each of two hours duration played over three consecutive half-days (1.5éday period for each condition). In the first condition the players consumed a sports drink before, during and after each match; in the second, they drank an identical volume of placebo water. The results obtained were compared with the third `resté condition in which the subjects did not play any tennis. Main outcomes measured were maximal isometric strength and fatigability of knee and elbow extensors, 20-m sprint speed, jumping height, specific repeated sprint ability test and hand grip strength.
Results
The physical test results for the lower limbs showed no significant differences between the three conditions. Conversely, on the upper limbs the EMG data showed greater fatigue of the triceps brachii in the placebo condition compared to the rest condition, while the ingestion of sports drinks attenuated this fatigue.
Conclusions
This study has demonstrated for the first time that, when tennis players are adequately hydrated and ingest balanced meals between matches, then no large drop in physical performance is observed even during consecutive competitive matches.
Trial registration
ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT01353872.
Electronic supplementary material
The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12970-014-0046-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Copyright comment
This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
Electronic supplementary material
The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12970-014-0046-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Copyright comment
This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
Competing interests
Nicolas Aubineau and Sébastien L Peltier are employees of Laboratoire Lescuyer-Nutratletic. Jean-Franéois Lescuyer is the general director of the company.
This trial was carried out by Laboratoire des Adaptations Métaboliques é léExercice en conditions Physiologiques et Pathologiques (AME2P) and Laboratoire Lescuyer-Nutratletic as a joint venture.
The other authors have no competing interests.
Authorsé contributions
TB: conception and design of the study, acquisition of data, analysis and interpretation of data, drafting manuscript. SR: conception and design of the study, acquisition of data (electromyographic measures), analysis and interpretation of data (electromyographic measures), drafting manuscript. PL: conception and design of the study, acquisition of data, analysis and interpretation of data, revising manuscript. LM: acquisition of data, dietary protocol management, revising manuscript. GE: acquisition of data, analysis and interpretation of data, revising manuscript. ED: conception and design of the study, acquisition of data, revising manuscript. VM: analysis and interpretation of data (electromyographic measures), revising manuscript. DB: design of the study, revising manuscript. NA: analysis and interpretation of data, revising manuscript. JL: conception and design of the study, revising manuscript. MD: conception and design of the study (main clinical investigator), acquisition of data, revising manuscript. PS: conception and design of the study (main project coordinator), acquisition of data, analysis and interpretation of data, drafting manuscript. SP: conception and design of the study (main project coordinator), analysis and interpretation of data, statistical analysis, drafting manuscript. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.