Quantification of the effect of warm up and stretching on the oxygen metabolism using an improved version of a fNIRS device

Abstract

In the vastly improved field of exercise physiology, it is an imperative to exercise a a warm up and stretching routine before training. The reasoning is closely associated with the oxygen (O2) metabolism in the blood. Warm up provides the necessary means to activate enzymatic reactions to accelerate oxy-hemoglobin (HbO2) break up by increasing the body temperature and slightly decreasing the pH of blood. Stretching, meanwhile, acts as a regime to educate the muscle by extending the sarcomere to its full length and lining up the extracellular matrix (predominantly, the collagen fibers) in the line of action. This M.Sc. thesis is involved with the analysis of the effect of warm up and stretching on the O2 metabolism. The device used in the quantification process is a fNIRS equipment, named NIROXCOPE 301. Niroxcope 301, an improved version of Niroxcope 2011, locally measures the deoxy-hemoglobin (Hb) and oxy-hemoglobin (HbO2) change with respect to time and relative to a baseline determined at the calibration stage. The Arterial Occlusion Protocol was applied by using Niroxcope 301 in an effort to compare the gastrocnemius of the subjects ready for exercise (i.e. with warm up and stretching) with the unprepared gastrocnemius in terms of the pre-determined three parameters of post occlusion. Hbmax data, due to its great difference compared to that of the control groups resulted in p = 4.71 e-5 in ANOVA analysis. 90% index provided the most sterile data as it is normalized by a maximal value. It resulted in p = 0.0054. trec was a more controversial data due to its dual nature (more recuitment vs. better recovery of a single unit) and displayed a mixed pattern.|Keywords: warm up, stretching, O2 metabolism, functional Near-Infrared Spectrscopy (fNIRS), Niroxcope, ischemia