fergus – I meant to add above ..
this group of athletes also had quite high free T and quite low variation between them – may have influenced what we saw – whereas cortisol was much more variable
In some previous work we had a much greater spread of Ts in the athletes and actually found there there was quite a relationship between free T and performance on short burst power
If you forgive me for speculating I am really interested in the observation you made in another thread on athlete personality (or temperament) and training/ event choice
we have seen quite marked hormone differences across different events – e.g rowing vs throwing which of course may reflect the events and training but also do seem to relate to broad personality types – I guess there is a good body of evidence suggesting this in a more social setting too
I know you do a lot of work with boxers – we found that boxers showed a massive T response to boxing and not to a weight training session which we calculated was of similar intensity
man – a fascinating area for future thinking
thanks again mate !