Antioxidant status and lipid peroxidation after short-term maximal exercise in trained and untrained humans

The purpose of this study was to measure resting muscle and blood antioxidant status in untrained (n = 8) and jump-trained (n = 8) humans and to evaluate free radical-mediated muscle damage after a strenuous jump test consisting of six bouts of 30-s continuous jumping separated by 2 min of rest. Resting muscle antioxidant activities [superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione peroxidase (GPX), glutathione reductase (GR), and manganese SOD] were significantly higher in jump-trained compared with untrained subjects. Blood antioxidant enzyme activities and muscle catalase, however, were not different between the two groups. Creatine kinase activities increased significantly (P < 0.0001) after the jump test in untrained individuals, but remained unchanged in the jump trained. Plasma and muscle malonaldehyde (MDA) after the jump test were not significantly different from rest. These data suggest that jump training is associated with elevated activities of SOD and the coupled enzymes GPX and GR in muscle tissue, but other antioxidants remain unchanged. High-intensity jump exercise induces muscle enzyme leakage in untrained humans, but muscle lipid peroxidation, measured as changes in MDA, was not different in the two groups despite the varied muscle antioxidant enzyme levels.