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Eur J Appl Physiol (2011) 111:22612269 DOI 10.1007/s00421-011-1855-x
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
The effect of HMB supplementation on body composition, tness, hormonal and inammatory mediators in elite adolescent volleyball players: a prospective randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study
Shawn Portal Zvi Zadik Jonathan Rabinowitz Ruty Pilz-Burstein Dana Adler-Portal
Yoav Meckel Dan M. Cooper Alon Eliakim Dan Nemet
Received: 25 August 2010 / Accepted: 25 January 2011 / Published online: 16 February 2011 Springer-Verlag 2011
Abstract The use of ergogenic nutritional supplements is becoming inseparable from competitive sports. b-Hydroxy-b-Methylbutyric acid (HMB) has recently been suggested to promote fat-free mass (FFM) and strength gains during resistance training in adults. In this prospective randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study, we studied the effect of HMB (3 g/day) supplementation on body composition, muscle strength, anaerobic and aerobic capacity, anabolic/catabolic hormones and inammatory mediators in elite, national team level adolescent volleyball players (13.518 years, 14 males, 14 females, Tanner stage 45) during the rst 7 weeks of the training season. HMB
led to a signicant greater increase in FFM by skinfold thickness (56.4 10.2 to 56.3 8.6 vs. 59.3 11.3 to61.6 11.3 kg in the control and HMB group, respectively, p \ 0.001). HMB led to a signicant greater increase in both dominant and non-dominant knee exion isokinetic force/FFM, measured at fast (180/sec) and slow (60/sec) angle speeds, but had no signicant effect on knee extension and elbow exion and extension. HMB led to a signicant greater increase in peak and mean anaerobic power determined by the Wingate anaerobic test (peak power: 15.5 1.6 to 16.2 1.2 vs. 15.4 1.6 to 17.2 1.2 watts/FFM, mean power: 10.6 0.9 to 10.8 1.1 vs.10.7 0.8 to 11.8 1.0 watts/FFM in control and HMB group, respectively, p \ 0.01), with no effect on fatigue index. HMB had no signicant effect on aerobic tness or on anabolic (growth hormone, IGF-I, testosterone), catabolic (cortisol) and inammatory mediators (IL-6 and IL-1 receptor antagonist). HMB supplementation was associated with greater increases in muscle mass, muscle strength and anaerobic properties with no effect on aerobic capacity suggesting some advantage for its use in elite adolescent volleyball players during the initial phases of the training season. These effects were not accompanied by hormonal and inammatory mediator changes.
Keywords Supplements Youth Athletes
Cytokines Growth
Introduction
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