Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of four weeks judo training on plasma leptin levels. Twenty-five female national team athletes with a mean age of 18.12±1.12 years; body weight of 62.72±22.72 kg; body height of 164.28±7.28 cm, BMI of 23.17±6.28 kg/m²; training experience of 6.56±5.44 years participated in this study. The data were collected from junior female judokas who trained six times in a week for two hours daily. Physical measurements and blood samples were taken before and after four weeks of training including technical, tactical and physical preparations. Body fat percentages were measured by using the Tanita Bioimpedance BC-418 (Tokio, Japan). Statistical Package for Social Science 15.0 (SPSS) was used to analyse the obtained results. Before and after the training, paired samples t-test was used to evaluate the differences between serum leptine and body fat percentages. Results of this study showed that pre-training serum leptin levels were significantly lower than post-training levels (p<0.01). There was also significant decrease in body fat percentages after four week training (p<0.01). Four weeks judo training results in a decrease in total body fat and serum leptin level in junior female judokas. It may be considered that lowered serum leptin levels were due to the decrease of the body fat percentage after four weeks training.

Key words: Plasma leptin, body fat, female judokas.