Aim: COVID-19 virus is considered one of the latest crises of the present century, which has various negative effects and consequences, including delayed return to sports activities for recovered athletes. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of four weeks of aerobic exercise with caffeine supplementation on the VO2max and anaerobic power of COVID-19 recovered male athletes.
Methodology: twenty-eight male student-athletes aged between 18 to 25 years from the International University of Imam Khomeini of Qazvin were randomly divided into four Groups: aerobic exercise (7 people), control (7 people), aerobic exercise with caffeine supplementation (7 people), and aerobic exercise with placebo (7 people), in a pre-test post-test design. The aerobic exercise intervention consisted of running on a treadmill at an intensity of 65% to 85% of age-predicted maximum heart rate for 25 to 35 minutes. Participants in the caffeine and placebo conditions consumed either 0.5 mg of caffeine per kilogram of body weight or a maltodextrin (placebo) tablet 30 minutes prior to exercise. The Shapiro-Wilk test was used to check for normality of data distribution and covariance analysis (ANCOVA) was used for inter-group comparison. Data analysis was conducted using SPSS version26 software.
Results: The ANCOVA analysis showed significant differences in the mean Vo2max and Peak anaerobic power among the four groups. Pairwise comparisons using Bonferroni post-hoc test showed statistically significant differences in the mean Vo2max between the aerobic exercise group and the control group, as well as between the aerobic exercise with caffeine and the aerobic exercise with placebo groups (p<0.001 and p<0.0001, respectively). Also, significant differences were observed in the mean peak anaerobic power between the aerobic exercise group and the control group, as well as between the aerobic exercise with caffeine and the aerobic exercise with placebo groups (p<0.002 and p<0.01, respectively).
Conclusion: The results of this study showed that both aerobic exercise alone and aerobic exercise with caffeine supplementation have a positive effect on Vo2max and anaerobic power in male athletes recovered from COVID-19, but the aerobic exercise -caffeine supplementation group had significantly better performance. Therefore, aerobic exercise with caffeine supplementation can be considered a more effective way to improve the sports performance of male athletes recovered from COVID-19.