Children participating in swimming training exhibit increased oxidative stress

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Oxidative stress in swimmers

In recent years, the concept of exercised-induced ‘oxidative stress’ (damage caused within cells at the molecular level as a result of increased oxygen metabolism) has become much more widely understood by athletes and coaches. While maximising oxygen uptake is a good thing for athletic performance, the price paid is potentially damaging increased oxidative stress (a bad thing), which explains the growing interest in the role of protective antioxidants in the diets of endurance athletes.

Now new research carried out on swimmers by Greek researchers indicates that increased oxidative stress can also affect child athletes. This study looked at 17 trained young swimmers with an average age of 10.1 years and compared them with 12 age-matched non-athletes. In particular, the researchers looked at two types of markers in the blood; those that are associated with increased oxidative stress (such as thiobarbituric acid-reactive substances or TBARS) and other markers associated with protective antioxidant capacity (such reduced glutathione or GSH) and which would indicate protection from oxidative stress.

The results showed that reduced glutathione (GSH) was 37% lower in the swimmers compared to non-athletes and that oxidised glutathione (GSSG – this is glutathione that has reacted with oxygen radicals) was not different. This in turn meant that the ratio of GSH/GSSG) was 43% lower in swimmers compared to non-athletes (the lower this ratio, the greater the oxidative stress in the body). Moreover, TBARS concentration was 25% higher in swimmers compared to controls (indicating higher oxidative stress) and total antioxidant capacity (a measure of the body’s overall ability to combat oxidative stress) was 28% lower.

The authors comment that children participating in swimming training exhibit increased oxidative stress and less antioxidant capacity compared to untrained counterparts, which suggests they may be more susceptible to oxidative stress induced by chronic exercise. These findings raise a number of questions such as whether children (whose diets are often low in antioxidant fruits and vegetables) should supplement antioxidant nutrients and whether this increased oxidative stress could have other implications for a growing body.
Eur J Appl Physiol 2007; 28 [Epub ahead of print]

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Comments

How many hours of training is recommended for a 10 year old?

sachharum.spontaneum

My child is 10 years old and is in the swimming varsity team of his school. he swims a total of 12-15 hours every week. Two hours every afternoon, Monday-Friday and 1 hour on the mornings of Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.

Thanks!

Submitted 2 years 1 week ago by sachharum.spontaneum

Wow

Midiman

hi there

wow your child is amazing because if can do that he will be a good swimmer when he is older hopefully.

anyway i think he should have 3 hours everyday but let him actually do lengths.

thanks for reading

Midiman

Submitted 1 year 42 weeks ago by Midiman

Swimming

moira.dooling

My child is 9 and is training for an hour a day. Is this training sufficient and what other training would you recommend additional to swimming for an hour.

Submitted 1 year 37 weeks ago by moira.dooling

Swimming

autoid_4739958847d52

9 years old is young. I think that is sufficient.At this age, he should be doing other sports too to develop other skills and then specialized later on. Swimming is technical together with other sports. You want him to develop the proper strokes and techniques at this level to be efficient in the water sometime in the future particularly during his maturity level

Submitted 1 year 26 weeks ago by autoid_4739958847d52

Swimming

autoid_4739958847d52

That is brutal for a ten year old to swim that much. The child will have problems physically in the near future and he'll quit by the time he reaches his maturity. I feel sorry for him.

Submitted 1 year 26 weeks ago by autoid_4739958847d52

10 years old and how much should he swim?

Betzswim1

I have a 10 year old son who is state swimmer in Australia. He used to train for 15 hours a week, but we found that the intensity of the swim sessions were a burden on his competitive performances. He now swims under a Russian Coach who has reduced his swim sessions to 10 hours per week and supplemented the this with 2 sessions X 1.5 hours of dryland training. My son performances have most certainly improve and he's a much happier little boy who loves his swimming and training sessions and has now advanced to Australian National age level.

Good luck to your Son, hope all goes well with him and his swimming.

Submitted 1 year 25 weeks ago by Betzswim1

training for 13 year old elite swimmer.

maximusmaximus

My daughter trains between 10 - 15 hours per week. She eats well and gets sufficient rest, but seems to have constant sore throats and complains of having depleted energy levels.
She has a new coach that wants to increase the training to 8 sessions per week! I have explained to him that my daughter is below par but he still wants her to attend the training sessions but nothing strenuous.
I have taken her to the doctors who only recommend rest which contradicts the coach’s advice.
Any advice appreciated.

Submitted 1 year 22 weeks ago by maximusmaximus

training for 13 year old elite swimmer

jctenney

I dont think it is the training.I have experienced this with my son aswell what we found out later was it was the PH level of the pool.Its worth it to ask the coaches or pool owners if they are shocking the pool before practices.Good Luck

Submitted 1 year 13 weeks ago by jctenney