Aerobic Fitness and Training in Children

Purpose: The presence of a maturational threshold that modulates children's physiological responses to exercise training continues to be debated, not least due to a lack of longitudinal evidence to address the question. The purpose of this study was to investigate the interaction between swim-training status and maturity in nineteen trained (T, 10 +/- 1 years, -2.4 +/- 1.9 years prepeak height velocity, 8 boys) and fifteen untrained (UT, 10 +/- I years, -2.3 +/- 0.9 years prepeak height velocity, 5 boys) children, at three annual measurements. Methods: In addition to pulmonary gas exchange measurements, stroke volume (SV) and cardiac output (Q) were estimated by thoracic bioelectrical impedance during incremental ramp exercise. Results: At baseline and both subsequent measurement points, trained children had significantly (p <.05) higher peak oxygen uptake (year I T 1.75 +/- 0.34 vs. UT 1.49 +/- 0.22; year 2 T 2.01 +/- 0.31 vs. UT 1.65 +/- 0.08; year 3 T 2.07 +/- 0.30 vs. UT 1.77 +/- 0.16 I min(-1)) and Q (year 1 T 15.0 +/- 2.9 vs. UT 13.2 +/- 2.2; year 2 T 16.1 +/- 2.8 vs. UT 13.8 +/- 2.9; year 3 T 19.3 +/- 4.4 vs. UT 16.0 +/- 2.71 min(-1)). Furthermore, the SV response pattern differed significantly with training status, demonstrating the conventional plateau in UT but a progressive increase in T. Multilevel modeling revealed that none of the measured pulmonary or cardiovascular parameters interacted with maturational status, and the magnitude of the difference between T and UT was similar, irrespective of maturational status. Conclusion: The results of this novel longitudinal study challenge the notion that differences in training status in young people are only evident once a maturational threshold has been exceeded.