Effects of prior heavy exercise on heterogeneity of muscle deoxygenation kinetics during subsequent heavy exercise

We investigated the effects of prior heavy exercise on the spatial heterogeneity of muscle deoxygenation kinetics and the relationship to the pulmonary O(2) uptake (pVO(2)) kinetics during subsequent heavy exercise. Seven healthy men completed two 6-min bouts of heavy work rate cycling exercise, separated by 6 min of unloaded exercise. The changes in the concentration of deoxyhemoglobin/myoglobin (Delta deoxy-[Hb+Mb]) were assessed simultaneously at 10 different sites on the rectus femoris muscle using multichannel near-infrared spectroscopy. Prior exercise had no effect on either the time constant or the amplitude of the primary component pVO(2), whereas it reduced the amplitude of the slow component (SC). Delta deoxy-[Hb+Mb] across all 10 sites for bout 2 displayed a shorter time delay (mean and SD for subjects: 13.5 +/- 1.3 vs. 9.3 +/- 1.4 s; P < 0.01) and slower primary component time constant (tau: 9.3 +/- 1.3 vs. 17.8 +/- 1.0 s; P < 0.01) compared with bout 1. Prior exercise significantly reduced both the intersite coefficient of variation (CV) of the tau of Delta deoxy-[Hb+Mb] (26.6 +/- 11.8 vs. 13.7 +/- 5.6%; P < 0.01) and the point-by-point heterogeneity [root mean square error (RMSE)] during the primary component in the second bout. However, neither the change in the CV for tau nor RMSE of Delta deoxy-[Hb+Mb] correlated with the reduction in the SC in pVO(2) kinetics during subsequent heavy exercise. In conclusion, prior exercise reduced the spatial heterogeneity of the primary component of muscle deoxygenation kinetics. This effect was not correlated with alterations in the pVO(2) response during subsequent heavy exercise.