A comparison of cardiorespiratory responses between CrossFit® practitioners and recreationally trained individual

Abstract

The aim of this study was to compare the neuromuscular and cardiorespiratory capacities among CrossFit® (CF) practitioners and recreationally trained (RT) individuals. Sixteen participants between 18 and 30 years old of both sexes participated in this study. They were divided into CF Practitioners group (CF: sex= 4 men and 4 women; age= 28.6±4.3 yr; height= 170.7±6.5 cm; BMI= 23.1±1.9 Kg/m2) and RT individuals group (RT: sex= 4 men and 4 women; age= 26.5±3.9 yr; height= 165.7±8.9 cm; BMI= 21.8±2.6 Kg/m2). After familiarization with procedures, and a body composition evaluation by skinfolds, a duration of 72 h, all participants did a maximum cardiorespiratory test by an incremental cycle ergometer. Data were analyzed for normality, using the Shapiro- Wilks test, and then a student t-test was used to compare both of the groups. The CF group presented a significantly higher lean mass than the RT group (p= 0.003). The CF group had significant smaller second ventilatory threshold (p= 0.04), power of first ventilatory threshold (p= 0.01), and power of second ventilatory threshold (p= 0.04), than the RT group (p < 0.05). Also, the heart rate Recovery (HRR) was significantly smaller for the CF group than the RT group (p= 0.02). It could be concluded that although CF practitioners did not present higher VO2max and maximum power than RT individuals, while the CF practitioners presented significant differences in more lean mass and better HRR, which shows cardiorespiratory and neuromuscular adaptations.