The effect of fish oil supplementation on fatigue perception following submaximal exercise during the COVID-19 pandemic

The Pandemic of Covid-19 has created the "New Normal" lifestyle and has limited people to perform their daily
activities from home. These changes in turn affect the level of physical activities including the intention to
engage in regular exercise in most people subsequently put them to the risk of having negative effects due to
being physically inactive. This condition may downregulate the human immune system to become more
vulnerable to various diseases. Oral supplementation of fish oil has been proposed to have benefits on
decreasing pro-inflammatory markers induced by exercise. This study aimed to analyze the effect of fish oil
supplementation on the degree of fatigue perception following submaximal exercise. Forty-four male college
students participated in this non-equivalent pre-posttest experimental research. The participants were
supplemented with 2 soft capsules of 1.5 grams fish oil for 8 weeks, the effect of submaximal exercise was
carried out by the sit-up and bleep tests which was measured before and after 8 weeks of fish oil
supplementation. The research procedure was approved by the ethics committee of the Makassar State
University research institute. The results showed that there was a strong relationship between the administration
of fish oil supplements and the level of fatigue perception following sit-ups and bleep tests (p value:-0.529 and -
0.658 respectively) performed during the pandemic of Covid-19. This study concludes that the administration of
fish oil supplementation affects the degree of fatigue perception after doing submaximal exercise especially
during the Pandemic of Covid-19.