The effects of different recovery methods on anaerobic performance in combat sports athletes

Background: Athletes, who engage in combat sports, perform often several matches in a day during competitions. For this reason, recovery is a very important factor between matches. There are many different recovery methods applied by athletes and it is very important to know which one is more suitable for anaerobic performance. Objective: The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of different recovery methods on anaerobic performance in combat sports athletes. Methods: Thirteen experienced international level elite combat sports athletes (age 20.5 ± 1.6 years, body height 175.3 ± 4.5 cm, body mass 73.8 ± 7.9 kg, body fat 11.4 ± 3.9%, training experience 7.5 ± 3.4 years) have participated voluntarily in this study. Athletes were involved in passive recovery (PR), cold water immersion (CWI) and active recovery (AR) methods after countermovement jump and Wingate anaerobic test. Also, body temperature and rating of perceived exertion were evaluated. In this study, a randomized crossover design was used and applications lasted three days. All measurements were performed at three different times (baseline, 1st and 2nd session) in a day. Two-way analysis of variance with repeated measures was used for statistical analysis. Results: For the countermovement jump there was a significant increase after CWI and AR. A significant decrease was found in the Fatigue index after CWI recovery. Body temperature was increased after CWI, AR, and PR. Rating of perceived exertion has increased in AR. Moreover, there were no significant differences were found in peak power and mean power. Conclusions: The results indicate that during intermittent recovery, CWI positively impacted countermovement jump and fatigue index. Also, AR has positively affected countermovement jump performance, while negatively affected the rating of perceived exertion. Thus our findings suggest that 10 min of CWI and AR can be adopted in competitions when successive matches take place.