Efectos del ejercicio físico en el perfil esteroideo urinario femeninotras una actividad física intensa de corta duración, y tras un programa de entrenamiento de fuerza donde se valoran las fases del ciclo menstrual

Resum

A vast number of scientific studies have demonstrated that physical exercise constitutes a model of stress: stress on a physiological level, which is highlighted by an alteration of the endocrine system, which may be transitory before intense physical exercise, or more or less permanent before chronic exercise. One of these transitory alterations is the rise in stress hormones, glucocorticoids, but if the exercise is continuous, and at a certain intensity, and, especially, at a competitive level, alterations in the production of sex hormones have been observed which, in women, may lead to temporary menstrual irregularities to a greater or lesser degree, and cases of oligomenorrhea and less frequently cases of infertility. Therefore, physical and emotional stress associated with both intense exercise and competitions may alter the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis and/or the hypothalamic-pituitary-ovarian axis. Nevertheless not all kinds of physical exercise and training programmes produce the same alterations in the endocrine hormonal system, many authors having concluded that chronic adaptations, and the design variables of the training programme, are highly specific according to the type of exercise carried out. For this reason, we carried out a study of the effect of two different kinds of physical exercise on the urinary excretion of steroid hormones in young sportswomen, one is a competitive handball match, and the other one is sub-maximal intensity strength training, 3 days a week, and during 3 consecutive menstrual cycles, and the results were compared to the urinary excretion of sedentary women of the same age group. We assessed the urinary excretion during 3 phases of the menstrual cycle, the early follicular phase, or menstrual phase, the mid-follicular phase, and the mid-luteal phase. The analytic technique used was gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry (GC/MS). We believe that the study carried out of the excretion of a group of steroid hormones which have not been assessed much in sports practice until now, such as progesterone metabolites, a sex hormone of upmost importance to maintain normal menstrual cycles, is innovative. The results obtained suggest that sports competition produces, in young women, a different response in the urinary excretion of steroid hormones, shown by a very significant increase in catabolic hormones, when compared to the response produced by sub-maximal intensity strength training during 3 consecutive menstrual cycles. Also, the urinary steroid hormone profile of sportswomen may be more anabolic than in non-sportswomen, since we observed an increase in the anabolic and catabolic hormone ratios, but this increase was only significant during one of the phases of the menstrual cycle. Another relevant fact is that the strength training carried out led to an increase in the participants' maximum strength, and this increase was accompanied by a clear hormonal balance that was more anabolic than catabolic during the menstrual phase of their menstrual cycles.