Acute Resistance Exercise Temporarily Reduces Circulating Adiponectin in Trained Young Men: A Pilot Study

Adiponectin is an adipokine with insulin-sensitizing, anti-inflammatory, and cytoprotective properties that also plays a key role in metabolic adaptation to exercise. Although its regulation after resistance exercise has been extensively documented, less is known about its short-term modulation and its correlation with muscle damage markers following resistance training.

Nine resistance-trained young men completed two sessions of total-body resistance exercise: (1) high time under tension (TUT) (5-1-2-1 cadence, to failure; ETS1) and (2) moderate TUT (2-1-2-1 cadence, two repetitions in reserve; ETS2). Plasma and saliva samples were collected before exercise and at 15 min, 24 h, and 48 h after exercise to assess total adiponectin by ELISA. Plasma creatine kinase (CK) and a Visual Analog Scale (VAS) were also measured for muscle soreness.

Plasma adiponectin significantly decreased from baseline to 48 h post-exercise in both sessions (p < 0.001), with no differences between the TUT conditions. Salivary adiponectin remained unchanged. Although a significant increase in CK and a decrease in adiponectin were observed at the group level, correlation analysis revealed no significant linear relationship between the magnitude of CK elevation and adiponectin reduction.

Overall, these findings support the role of adiponectin as a marker of acute metabolic adaptation to resistance exercise. Acute resistance exercise elicited a time-dependent decrease in circulating adiponectin, irrespective of TUT. The temporal pattern of adiponectin decrease coincided with the rise in muscle damage markers, yet the lack of direct correlation suggests distinct regulatory mechanisms, while the lack of salivary changes underscores the complexity of adipokine regulation in vivo and suggests that saliva is not a reliable indicator of changes in circulating adiponectin.