Effect of High intensity interval training and hypobaric hypoxia on Body weight changes and Endurance performance in Male wistar rats following the tapering program

Introduction: Adaptation to attitude is a complementary exercise to increase athletes' fitness and physiological performance. The present study investigated the effect of high intensity interval training at the hypobaric hypoxia conditions on weight changes and endurance performance test in rats following a three-weeks tapering period. Materials and Methods: In this experimental study, 25 males four weeks age Wistar rats with average weight (81±9 g) were randomly divided in two groups, exercise and control. Exercise group after the end of 6 weeks high intensity interval training (HIIT) (5 days per week, 30 minutes per session and at a speed of 15 to 70 meters per minute) divided into HIIT, Hypoxia, Taper and hypoxia with taper groups for 3 weeks. Weight changes and Endurance Test Performance were evaluated on the end of weeks. Analyzed is done with one-way ANOVA and TUKEY test at p<0.05. Results: The results showed that there are significant differences (p≤0.05) in fatigue times in hypoxic and taper-hypoxia groups with interval training group, respectively, 30.59 and 37.08. (p=0.001). Also, taper-hypoxic group showed the best performance to compare HIIT and control groups, that was increase significantly (p=0.001). Conclusion: It seems that use of hypoxic training program and taper techniques have a positive effect on endurance performance and time to exhaustion however the use taper with hypoxia condition need to be evaluated in combination.