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RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SALIVARY TESTOSTERONE AND CORTISOL AND POINTS SCORED DURING A BASKETBALL GAME – EXPLORATORY STUDY

Abstract

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

University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS

Wu Tsai Human Performance Alliance

While previous research has been primarily focused on studying changes in exercise-specific biomarkers on a pre-to-post-game basis, there is a lack of scientific literature investigating how they relate to some of the key sport-specific performance parameters. PURPOSE: The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between salivary testosterone (T) and cortisol (C) and points scored during a 5-on-5 basketball game. METHODS: Upon arrival at the gym (12:00 h), 7 professional male basketball players (hgt= 193.0±11.4 cm, wgt= 89.4±13.4 kg; age= 28.0±2.2 yrs) performed a standardized dynamic warm-up procedure, followed by 15 min of partner shooting. Then, all athletes simultaneously provided a pre-game salivary sample by holding an oral swab (Salimetrics, State College, PA) sublingually in their mouth for 2 min before releasing it into a centrifuge tube and proceeded with playing a simulated 5-on-5 basketball game (4x10 min quarters; 24-sec shot clock). A separate enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) was used for each hormone and all samples were analyzed in duplicate. Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients were used to measure the strength of a linear regression between pre-game T and C concentrations and points scored at the end of the game. Due to the exploratory nature of this study, the significance level was set to p<0.10. RESULTS: Points scored showed a strong positive correlation with C (r=0.73, R2=0.53, F[1,5]=5.54, p=0.06), and a weak non-significant association with T (r=0.17, R2=0.03, F[1,5]=0.16, p=0.71; Figure 1). CONCLUSION: The findings of this exploratory analysis revealed a positive relationship between salivary C and basketball on-court playing performance. Greater pre-game C levels could imply on the athlete’s better readiness to properly respond to competitive demands via the influence on cognitive processes and attentional control, which ultimately resulted in scoring more points at the end of the game.

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