Arterial Stiffness Intercostal Muscle Oxygenation and Aerobic-Anaerobic Capacity in Elite American Football Players

Plain-language summary

American football has become an increasingly popular sport in Türkiye, and one of the key determinants of success in this discipline is the development of strong aerobic and anaerobic exercise capacities. Previous research has examined arterial stiffness in various athletic populations, including endurance athletes, wrestlers, badminton players, volleyball players, and soccer players. These studies highlight the importance of detailed cardiovascular and hemodynamic evaluation to identify potential risk groups and to better understand sport-specific physiological adaptations. In sports requiring prolonged physical effort, maximal oxygen uptake is a major determinant of performance, underscoring the need to assess this parameter in elite athletic populations. Although a limited number of studies have investigated aerobic and anaerobic exercise capacities in American football athletes, no research to date has evaluated arterial stiffness or intercostal muscle oxygenation in this group. The present study aims to investigate arterial stiffness, intercostal muscle oxygenation, aerobic and anaerobic exercise capacity, and upper-extremity endurance in elite American football players compared with sedentary individuals. A cross-sectional study design will be used. Elite male athletes from the Gazi University American Football Team who volunteer to participate will be included, and their results will be compared with age- and sex-matched sedentary individuals. A total of 15 elite male athletes and 15 sedentary participants aged 18-30 years will be enrolled. All participants will undergo standardized assessments of arterial stiffness, intercostal muscle oxygenation, aerobic and anaerobic capacity, and upper-extremity endurance. Normality of variables will be assessed using visual inspection and the Kolmogorov-Smirnov and Shapiro-Wilk tests. Descriptive statistics will be reported as means, standard deviations, and 95% confidence intervals for normally distributed variables, and medians with interquartile ranges (25th-75th percentiles) for non-normally distributed variables. Frequencies and percentages will be used for categorical data. Between-group comparisons will be conducted using the independent samples t-test for normally distributed variables and the Mann-Whitney U test for non-normally distributed variables. Categorical variables will be analyzed using the chi-square test. A p-value of \<0.05 will be considered statistically significant.

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