(1)H NMR urinary metabolomic analysis in recreational athletes: Impact of physical exercise, high intensity interval training and whole body cryostimulation
Question
How do submaximal cycling, a 4-week HIIT program, and whole-body cryostimulation recovery affect urinary metabolomic profiles in recreational athletes?
Summary
This ancillary metabolomics study analyzed urine from 23 healthy recreational male athletes before and after a 2-hour submaximal cycling challenge, both before and after a 4-week HIIT program. Participants were randomized to whole-body cryostimulation after each HIIT session or passive recovery. HIIT and the cycling challenge altered urinary metabolites related to glycolysis, lipid metabolism, nucleotide turnover, and energy homeostasis; cryostimulation changed some metabolite patterns but the evidence is mechanistic and small-sample.
Methodology
- Healthy male recreational athletes randomized to WBC or passive recovery.
- 23 participants.
- Cycling plus whole-body cryostimulation.
- Work intervals: Not reported in this paper; eight intervals per session.
- Recovery: WBC immediately after each training session.
- Intensity: Workload corresponding to baseline power peak.
- 3 sessions/week.
- 4 weeks.
- Ancillary randomized parallel-group metabolomics study
- Urinary metabolites, Metabolic pathways, and Recovery technique were tracked.
Outcomes
SMC metabolites
Submaximal cycling changed lactate, adenine, urea, citrate, formate, alanine, and acetate patterns.
Targeted analyses reported multiple p<0.05 differences
HIIT adaptation
Training amplified post-SMC metabolic alterations in both groups.
PCA and targeted metabolite analyses
WBC
WBC showed distinct changes in selected metabolites but did not affect lactate and adenine.
Acetone and 2-hydroxyisobutyric acid changed only in WBC; citrate changed only in CTL
Insights
- Metabolomic changes after HIIT and WBC are mechanistic signals, not direct proof of better recovery or performance.
- Recovery modalities should be evaluated with user-relevant outcomes before app recommendation.
- Incomplete interval details limit direct workout replication.
Limitations
- Small all-male sample.
- Ancillary sub-study of an earlier protocol.
- Two CTL participants lacked end-procedure urine samples.
- Pathway analysis was semi-quantitative and needs validation.
- No adverse-event reporting or direct performance outcome emphasis.
Safety
- Adverse events were not reported in this paper.
- Participants were healthy male recreational athletes and cardiovascular risk factors associated with exercise and WBC were verified.
- Two control participants did not provide urine samples at the end of the procedure, creating incomplete outcome data but not described as safety-related.