•  
  •  
 

DIFFERENCES IN SALIVARY TESTOSTERONE AND CORTISOL BETWEEN WINNING AND LOSING TEAMS IN PROFESSIONAL MEN’S BASKETBALL

Abstract

Damjana Cabarkapa, Dimitrije Cabarkapa, Drake Eserhaut, Nicolas Philipp and Andrew Fry

University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS

Salivary analysis of exercise-related biomarkers has been commonly used as a non-invasive method for quantifying the physiological stress (internal load) experienced during training sessions and/or competition. PURPOSE: The purpose of the present study was to examine differences in salivary testosterone (T) and cortisol (C) between the winning and losing teams during a 5-on-5 basketball game. METHODS: Seven professional male basketball players (hgt=193.0±11.4 cm, wgt=89.4±13.4 kg; age=28.0±2.2 yrs) volunteered to participate in the present study. All athletes simultaneously provided salivary samples by holding an oral swab (Salimetrics, State College, PA) sublingually in their mouth for 2 min before releasing it into a centrifuge tube at eight testing time points: baseline (BS), post-warm-up (PW), post first (P1Q), second (P2Q), third (P3Q), and fourth (P4Q) quarter, and 30 (P30) and 60 min (P60) post-game. A separate enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was used for each hormone and all samples were ran in duplicates. Independent sample t-tests and Hedge’s g effect sizes (ES) were used to examine statistically significant differences in hormonal concentrations and their magnitudes between winning and losing teams (p≤0.05) RESULTS: No significant differences were observed in salivary T between winning and losing teams. However, salivary C revealed significantly greater values at BS (p=0.03; ES=2.35), PW (p=0.02; ES=2.59), and P60 (p=0.05; ES=1.96) when compared to the losing team (Figure 1). CONCLUSIONS: The findings of this study reveal that the winning and losing teams experienced different physiological responses during a 5-on-5 basketball game. While further research is warranted on this topic, it is likely that greater C levels observed within the players on the winning team prior to the start of the game allowed for better attentional control and cognitive processes that ultimately increased the likelihood of securing the desired outcome.

This document is currently not available here.

Share

COinS