Vascular Adaptations In The Dominant Upper Limb Of Tennis Players

Introduction
There is some evidence that human muscular type arteries could increase their lumen diameter after chronic changes in blood flow [1,2]. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the main muscular type arteries of the dominant arm and forearm of tennis players compared to the non-dominant.

Methods
Thirty-two male non-professional tennis players, aged between thirty and forty years, were recruited.
Brachial, radial and ulnar arteries were measured from images derived from an ultrasound machine.

Results
For the statistical analysis we used the t-test. The arteries lumen diameters were significantly increased in the dominant upper limb compared to the non-dominant one.

Discussion/Conclusions
The results of this study indicate that vascular adaptations occur to the stroke arm and forearm of tennis players. It is possible that the different blood flow alterations that take place locally during and after the tennis match [3] trigger mechanisms which leads to such adaptations[4,5].These data could help to improve specific conditioning and rehabilitation programs.

References
[1] Schmidt-Trucksass A.et al.(2000).Journal of Applied Physiology,89,1956-1963.
[2] Dinenno F.et al.(2001).Journal of physiology,534.1,287-295.
[3] Konig D.et al.(2000).Med and Science In Sport and Exercise ,3304,654-658.
[4] Langille B(1996).Canadian J of Physiology and Pharmacology 74,834-841.
[5] Driss A.et.al.(1997) American J of Physiology73,725-764.

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