The impact of 8-week training program by rowers on salivary secretory immunoglobulin A was studied to examine the relationship between the salivary sIgA and the training or the incidence of upper respiratory tract infection (URTI). Saliva was collected every training day in the first week, one day in the second, third, fourth and the eighth week. There were significant increases in salivary sIgA concentration and secretion rate (p<0.001) after individual training sessions. Over the 8-week training program, there were no significant increases in the concentration and secretion rate of sIgA, however, there were significant decreases in the concentration and secretion rate of sIgA in the second, third and fourth week (p<0.05). There was no significant trend for saliva secretion rate. The sIgA concentration and the sIgA secretion rate of subjects with URTI were significantly lower than that of non-infected subjects. The possibility that monitoring salivary sIgA could foresee the onset of URTI was suggested.