In the competition, athletes had the right and access to medical care, if necessary, physiotherapists and osteopaths to assist them in their recovery. Four athletes of the sample (50%) reported to have used venous rehydration with saline solution and electrolytes to recover from the workouts. They also used pneumatic compression devices to reduce the level of lactic acid in their lower limbs. No significant difference was found in the analyses of the athletes who adhered to these practices.

Subjective stress levels were not assessed by existing questionnaires (perception of overtraining levels, French Society of Sports Medicine). As mentioned above, CrossFit® is a new sport with high, acute cardiovascular response, which increases aerobic and anaerobic performance⁴, and requires different techniques for a good performance. For this reason, it is necessary to develop and validate a Scale for Psychological Stress Analysis in CrossFit® to investigate particular conditions (internal and external pressure) that may provoke a reaction in athletes and a subjective self-assessment of efficiency of the behavior adopted.

Some potential biases found in this study were the collection of the first sample before athletes used any stimulant supplements; the collection of saliva after the last workout of the day, due to athletes’ difficulty to produce saliva; and the risk of sample loss due to the little material collected during the study.