Evaluation of resting changes of some inflammatory, muscle damage, aerobic and anaerobic power indices of elite beach soccer players during Iranian premier league season

Beach soccer as a new exciting and popular field of sport is spreading rapidly around the world. However, so far, limited accurate and documented information is available about the physical and physiological needs of this sport. The purpose of this study was to investigate the changes in resting levels of some inflammatory, muscle damage, aerobic and anaerobic indices of beach soccer players in the pre-season, mid-season and end of the premier league season.

In this quasi-experimental study with repeated measures design, 13 elite beach soccer players (Mean± SD: age 24.64±4.01 year, body mass index 22.76±2.36 kg/m2 and maximum oxygen consumption 38.60±5.48 ml/kg/min) were selected. Measurements of aerobic and anaerobic power and alanin amino teransferase (ALT), aspartat amino teransferse (AST), certain phosphokinase (CPK) and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) indices were measured in the 98-99 pro league in pre-season, mid-season and also at the end of the season. The repeated measure analysis of variance and Bonferroni tests were used to examine the changes at the significant level of p<0.05.

Significant increase in ALT (p=0.04) and also decrease in anaerobic power (p=0.001) was observed from pre-season to the end of the season. LDH levels showed a significant increase in the mid-season compared to the pre-season (p=0.04) and as the same the significant decrease also was found at the end of the season compared to the mid-season (p=0.01). However, no significant changes were observed in AST (p=0.50), CPK (p=0.15) and aerobic power (p=0.11) during the competition season.

Due to the physiological pressure for beach soccer players at different stages, it is recommended that players in this field should be monitored for biochemical and functional parameters during the competition season, and based on that, training, nutrition and recovery programs could be optimized.