Abstract

Nervous activation and endurance of athletes were studied at rest and during exercise by measuring reaction time. The purpose of the study was to find out if an integrated evaluation of several repeated measurements collected over a long time might yield additional information on the pattern of nervous fitness, and whether reaction time changes were related to changes in the parameters of aerobic and anaerobic metabolism. Altogether 152 studies in 37 athletes were evaluated. It was found that a) physical effort brought about an increase in the means and standard deviations reaction time; b) the respective changes of reaction time, relative aerobic power and acid-base metabolism wereunrelated, and c) the subjects could be classified by the exercise changes of reaction time in two main categories: ones reproducing their individual pattern consistently over a long time, and those giving inconsistent results. The authors suggest that reaction time changes during exercise are due to the exercise-induced changes of the chemical milieu in general, and specifically to the reduction of arterial oxygen tension during the exercise. The classificability of the athletes in categories relying on the patterns of nervous activation and endurance may stem from the individually different sensitivity of central nervous ganglia to oxygen supply. Verf.-Referat