Triathlon is becoming more popular sport due to recognition of the positive effects of triathlon. Generally, participants in these strenuous activities are well considered as healthy individuals pursuing a healthy lifestyle. However, there is still controversy on the beneficial effects of prolonged exercise training and endurance sport events. The duration of exercise required to elicit cardiac dysfunction and the mechanisms underlying this phenomenon have not been fully elucidated. There are only limited data in literature for exercise-induced changes of cardiac and muscle damage biomarkers in athletes participating in different triathlon distances. Monitoring cardiac and muscle damage biomarkers in triathletes participating in different triathlon distances will help researchers, coaches, and athletes better understand how to design training cycles minimizing overtraining and injury risk. Therefore, the purpose of the present study was to examine for evidence of blood biomarkers during triathlon events of two different distances such as standard- and ultradistance triathlon in male triathletes. The results of the present study showed that ultradistance showed greater muscle damage markers such as creatine kinase, myoglobin and lactate dehydrogenase than standard-distance. We also found that the distance of triathlon did not lead to an increase of troponin T in male triathletes.
Keywords: Cardiac dysfunction; Endurance sport events; Muscle damage biomarkers; Triathlon; Troponin T.