The effect of strength training by electrostimulation at a specific time of day on immune response and anaerobic performances during short-term maximal exercise

Abstract

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of electrostimulation strength training (ES) and time-of-day on immune response and anaerobic performances during short-term maximal exercise. In randomized order, 24 active men divided into three groups: MTG (n=8): training times 07:00–08:00h; ETG (n=8): training times 17:00–18:00h; and CG (n=8) and were asked to perform a 30-s Wingate test (i.e. peak (PP), mean (MP)) and strength (1-RM) before (T0) and after four weeks of training (T1) at 08:00h and 18:00h. Our results showed that oral temperature, PP (p<0.05), MP (p<0.05), and Interleukine-6 levels (IL-6) (p<0.001) were significantly higher at 18:00h compared to 08:00h in all groups. However, 1-RM was not affected by the time-of-day (p>0.05). Likewise, IL-6 increased after exercise at T0 and T1 in CG, ETG, and MTG (p<0.001). Moreover, ES training leads an improvement in performances (p<0.05) with an increase in the tight circumference for the MTG (p<0.01) at the same time-of-training (08:00h) without affecting the immune response (p>0.05). In fact, the amplitude of variation was disappeared in MTG after ES. However, the ES did not affect the PP, MP, and 1-RM in ETG with no change in the tight circumference. A significant increase in IL-6 at the same time-of-training (p<0.05) was observed on ETG. For CG, no significant change was observed after ES compared with pre-training. In conclusion, ES training in the morning is a potent strategy to counteract the decrease in anaerobic performances without affecting inflammatory response compared to the evening training.

Keywords:

• Diurnal variation
• electrostimulation training
• inflammatory response

Acknowledgments

The authors thank all the subjects for their voluntary participation in this study.