Lactate and urea in competing archers: Sybil 2024

In 16 high-level Ukrainian archers, 5 Masters of Sport and 11 Candidate Masters aged 19 to 22, the study measured lactate and urea in urine before and after the physical load of training, both during normal preparation and at official competitions. Half the archers, allocated at random, used an autogenic training technique before every session; the other half trained as usual.

In training, urinary lactate, around 1 mmol/l at rest, did not rise after the load in either group, and autogenic training made no difference. At competitions, after at least eight weeks of autogenic training, urinary lactate after the load was 9.7% (±0.4) lower in the experimental group than in the controls. Urea did not change significantly under any condition. Using analysis of variance, the authors attribute the changes in lactate mainly to physical load (80%) in the control group and to the autogenic technique (68.4%) in the experimental group. They also report, without showing the data, an average improvement of 10 to 11 points in the experimental group in training, and conclude that urinary lactate might serve as a marker of psychological load.

The study was carried out at the Lviv State University of Physical Culture from September to March, in two phases: normal training, which the authors call the calm phase, and official competitions at various levels, the competition phase. The two groups of 8 were similar in age, ranking and preparation and had the same mean of 614 points (±3) on the double 70 m round. The autogenic technique, used for two months, had three parts: relaxation lying down or reclining, an immobilisation stage and then, standing before each shot, ideomotor rehearsal of the correct shot with eyes closed.

Urine samples were taken before and after the physical load, at a moment of relative rest after each event. Lactate was measured with Strom's colour reaction and urea with a colorimetric method. Results are expressed as a percentage of the resting value, compared with Student's t test and broken down into the share of variation attributable to each factor with one-way and two-way analysis of variance.

Psychological load is not measured: the difference between training and competition is taken for granted, with no questionnaires, heart rate or other indicators. Physical load is not described either, in volume or intensity. Urinary lactate is an indirect marker, affected by hydration, kidney function and sampling time, none of which the study controls or describes precisely; the data are shown only as percentages in graphs, with groups of 8.

There are internal inconsistencies: the length of autogenic training in the first phase is given once as one week and elsewhere as two months; the share attributed to the technique is 21.4% in the one-way analysis, 68.4% in the two-way analysis and 68.2% in the conclusions; the share for psychological load is 3.5% in one place and 3.6% in another. Significance is written as p>0.95, meaning a probability above 95% that the difference is not due to chance. The improvement in score that is mentioned is not shown. Finally, the Ukrainian header gives the third author's initial as B., while the English summary and Crossref give A.

For anyone who shoots, the study changes nothing concrete. Archery produces very little lactate, and indeed the value did not move in training; at competitions the difference between groups is 9.7% on a urinary marker that depends on many other things. Reading it as evidence that autogenic training reduces stress, or that urinary lactate measures mental load, goes beyond the data: the latter is the authors' hypothesis, offered as a supposition in the discussion and already recommended as a marker in the conclusions.

The part closest to practice is the technique itself, a routine of relaxation and mental rehearsal of the shot that many coaches know in similar forms. This study does not show that it improves scores, because the performance data are not reported. In the registry it counts as weak physiological data, not as evidence on the effectiveness of mental preparation.