Physiologic effects of distance running training on teenage females

The purpose of this study was to investigate selected physiological changes that occurred with distance training in teenage females. Two groups of untrained teenage females were matched on VO₂max, percent utilization of VO₂ @ 9.66 km/hr, peak heart rate, and percent body fat. One group served as control (n = 9) while the other (n = 10) underwent a 20-week training program designed to gradually increase the subjects’ average mileage from 0 to 32.2 km per week. At the end of the 20 weeks, a MANOVA revealed significant mean differences within the trained group and no significant mean differences within the control group. The univariate analysis revealed that significant (p < 0.05) mean differences found within the training group were for VO₂max (45.1 vs. 49.3 ml · kg^-1 · min^-1), percent utilization of VO₂ @ 9.66 km/hr (76.5% vs. 67.5%), and economy VO₂ @ 9.66 km/hr (34.5 vs. 33.2 ml · kg^-1 · min^-1). Of the variables which exhibited significant training effects, percent utilization of VO₂ max showed the greatest relative change, a 12.2% decrease, with VO₂ max showing a 9.3% increase. The posttest results were similar to the research literature for training effects found for males and other age groups.