Relationship Between Speed of Striking and Time to Exhaustion of an Elite Deaf Karateka

Problem statement. Karate is part of the Deaflympic Games program, however, the problems of the training process in Deaflympic sports have not been sufficiently studied. Approach. The study involved an elite female karate player, a three-time deaflympic champion. During the annual macrocycle, in shock microcycles, the athlete performed a specific aerobic test for karatekas (KSAT), which includes a series of strokes: kizami zuki, mawashi geri, gyaku zuki, kizami mawashi geri. The following indicators were studied: speed of striking, time to exhaustion, level, blood lactate level, heart rate during the test. Purpose: to find out the speed abilities, time to exhaustion, and their correlation of an elite karateka with hearing problems during KSAT. Physiological indicators of fatigue while test performing have been also studied and compared with the data of healthy athletes. Results: The athlete completed 27 KSAT series during the year. The heart rate was 191.6±5.2 , the lactate level was 13.3±0.9 mmol, and was 48.4±2.05. The period before exhaustion was 642.3±33.8 s, the speed of striking was: kizami zuki - 5.9±0.27; mawashi geri - 9.27±0.24; gyaku zuki - 7.41±0.35 , kizami mawashi geri - 6.3±0.3 . The correlation relationship indicators between the speed of striking and the time to exhaustion were equal: kizami zuki - r=0.89; mawashi geri - r=0.87; gyaku zuki - r=0.91; kizami mawashi geri - r=0.82 (p <0.001 for all indicators). Conclusions: There is a strong correlation between the speed of striking during the performance of KSAT and the time to exhaustion. High levels of lactate in the blood and heart rate indicate work in the anaerobic zone during striking. The results shown by a deaf elite athlete supplement the previous research data, in which karatekas of different qualifications and sex took part.