Effects of endurance exercise training on muscle glycogen accumulation in humans

Abstract

The purpose of this investigation was to determine whether endurance exercise training increases the ability of human skeletal muscle to accumulate glycogen after exercise. Subjects (4 women and 2 men, 31 ± 8 yr old) performed high-intensity stationary cycling 3 days/wk and continuous running 3 days/wk for 10 wk. Muscle glycogen concentration was measured after a glycogen-depleting exercise bout before and after endurance training. Muscle glycogen accumulation rate from 15 min to 6 h after exercise was twofold higher ( P < 0.05) in the trained than in the untrained state: 10.5 ± 0.2 and 4.5 ± 1.3 mmol ⋅ kg wet wt−1 ⋅ h−1, respectively. Muscle glycogen concentration was higher ( P < 0.05) in the trained than in the untrained state at 15 min, 6 h, and 48 h after exercise. Muscle GLUT-4 content after exercise was twofold higher ( P < 0.05) in the trained than in the untrained state (10.7 ± 1.2 and 4.7 ± 0.7 optical density units, respectively) and was correlated with muscle glycogen concentration 6 h after exercise ( r = 0.64, P < 0.05). Total glycogen synthase activity and the percentage of glycogen synthase I were not significantly different before and after training at 15 min, 6 h, and 48 h after exercise. We conclude that endurance exercise training enhances the capacity of human skeletal muscle to accumulate glycogen after glycogen-depleting exercise.