Past Paper

Question 1

Describe the activity profile of team sports (e.g. football, field hockey, rugby, netball, basketball
etc.)

Answer 1

Team sports have an ‘intermittent’ activity profile (1 mark).
The majority of time is spent in low intensity activities - standing, walking, and jogging (1 mark).
Low intensity periods are interspersed with brief intervals of high-intensity activity -sprinting, jumping,
cutting etc. (1 mark).

Question 2

Explain the impact and relevance of the concurrent training effect on team sport athletes.

Answer 2

Strength response to training is reduced due to involvement in high intensity endurance training (1.5
mark).
This is relevant to team sports because most sports require a combination of strength and endurance
abilities (1 mark).

Question 3

Describe how an increase in muscle capilliarisation affects a-vO2 difference?

Answer 3

Increased capillary density in muscle (1 mark).
Increase in mean transit time (1 mark).
Maintenance of a-vO2 diff. even at high intensity (1 mark).

Question 4

How does training in a muscle glycogen depleted state improve endurance performance?

Answer 4

Results in enhanced mobilisation of fatty acids for fuel (1 mark).
Results in enhanced use of fatty acids for fuel (1 mark).
Spare glycogen = deferred accumulation of waste products associated with glycolysis (1 mark)

Question 5

What is the duration (weeks) the acute and chronic ratio are calculated from (Gabbett, 2016
BJSM)?

Answer 5

Acute = 1 week (1.5 marks)
Chronic = 4 weeks (1.5 marks).

Question 6

What is an appropriate acute chronic ratio (range) for team sport athletes (Gabbett, 2016
BJSM)?

Answer 6

0. 8 (1.5 marks).

1. 3 or 1.5 (1.5 marks).

Question 7

Identify two objective internal measures to monitor training intensity during exercise.

Answer 7

Heart rate (1.5 marks).
Blood lactate etc. (1.5 marks).

Question 8

Report three ways of measuring post exercise fatigue.

Answer 8

Biochemical (1 mark).
Neuromuscular (1 mark).
Hormone / endocrine (1 mark).
Perceptual (1 mark).

Question 9

Why is creatine kinase used as an indirect marker of muscle damage?

Answer 9

CK is found in cells (1 mark).
Low circulating levels of CK in the blood (1 mark).
Following muscle damage CK leaks from cells and is found in the blood (1 mark).

Question 10

Report two common tests of lower body neuromuscular function.

Answer 10

Counter Movement Jump (1.5 mark). Or any jump
Cycle Ergometer (1.5 mark).
Sprint (1.5 marks)

Question 11

Describe three potential causes of transient (short-term) fatigue?

Answer 11

Acidosis (1 mark).
Substrate depletion (1 mark).
Electrolyte depletion (1 mark).
Dehydration (1 mark)

Question 12

Why does acidosis as a result of high intensity exercise cause an athlete to slow down?

Answer 12

Lactate production causes a proton (H+) to be released (1 marks) which decreases pH (1 marks).
Decrease in pH inhibits PFK (1 marks), which is a rate limiting enzyme of glycolysis (1 marks).
Decrease in pH inhibits Ca+ release (1 marks) which affects muscle contraction (1 marks).

Question 13

Blood volume can increases following steady intensity long distance endurance training. What
are the mechanisms that cause an increase in maximal cardiac output following this increase in blood
volume?

Answer 13

Increase in blood volume results in an increase in end diastolic volume (EDV) (1 mark).
An increase in EDV results in an increase in stroke volume (SV) (1 mark).
Therefore since heart rate maximum will not have changed, maximum cardiac output will increase as
Qmax = SV x HRmax (1 mark).

Question 14

You investigate the effect of sprint training intervention on phosphofructokinase activity (PFK).
Explain the effects of training on PFK enzyme activity, and how changes to PFK enzyme activity will
affect metabolism and sprint performance.

Answer 14

PFK activity increases (1.5 mark).
Allows greater glycolytic flux and therefore ATP re-synthesis from muscle glycogen (1.5 mark).
Higher power outputs are sustained for a longer period of time (1.5 mark).

Question 15

Between 10 and 20 s of a maximal sprint, why does the anaerobic contribution to ATP
production fall by 50% yet power output only falls by 30%.

Answer 15

The decline in anaerobic ATP re-synthesis is due to reduced reliance on PCr and anaerobic glycolysis
(1.5 mark).
To compensate, VO2 and Oxidative phosphorylation increases (1.5 mark).
Increased ATP re-synthesis by oxidative phosphorylation (aerobic pathways) offers a partial
compensation for the decline in anaerobic ATP re-synthesis (1.5 mark).

Question 16

With reference to PCr, why should sprinters avoid training their 100 m sprint using short (< 5
min) recovery periods?

Answer 16

The 10 s will drop PCr content by >50-75% (1 mark).
To reach 100% sprint capacity, this will take longer than 5 min to fully re-synthesise (1 mark).
Complete PCr recovery could take 13 min or more (1 mark).

Question 17

Massage therapy has shown to have no effect on skeletal muscle blood flow. However, what
does massage therapy do to promote skeletal muscle adaptation?

Answer 17

Activates mechanotransduction signalling cascade (1.5 mark).
Accumulation of PGC1alpha in the cell nucleus (1.5 mark).
This leads to stimulation of mitochondrial biogenesis (1.5 mark)

Question 18

Massage therapy may also be anti-inflammatory. What is the mechanism?

Answer 18

Massage reduced inflammation (1 mark); notably reductions in TNFalpha (1 mark) and IL6 (1 mark).

Question 19

Identify two objective training load variables used to monitor training intensity from GPS

Answer 19

High-speed running (HSR) (1.5 marks).
Relative distance (m/min) (1.5 marks).