To optimize performance, coaches and athletes are always looking for the right balance between training load and recovery. Therefore, closely monitoring of athletes is important. Heart rate recovery (HRR) after standardized sub maximal exercise has been proposed as a useful variable to monitor (Lamberts et al., 2004). However, it is well known that heart rate, next to biological variability, is influenced by several factors such as training load and psychosocial stress. So, the purpose was to look at individual variability in HRR from one week to another using the heart rate interval monitoring system (HIMS). Methods: Eight elite Dutch female indoor hockey players (age: 23.9±3.91yr, length: 155.0±7.01cm, weight: 56.6±6.16kg) completed the HIMS two weeks in a row (Lamberts et al., 2004). The heart rate at the end of the last stage (HRend) was determined and the HRR was calculated one minute after the end of the last stage. Furthermore, training load and psychosocial stress and recovery were monitored using the Fostermethod (1998) and the RESTQ-Sport (Nederhof et al., 2008), respectively. Results: A strong correlation was found between the HRend from one week to the other (r=0.984 p<0.01). No correlation was found for the HRR after one minute between the first and second week. Comparison of the means of HRend and HRR revealed a significant (p<0.01) difference between the mean HRR of the first week (M= 57.24, SD=14.05) compared to the second week (M=54.43, SD=11.12). Different individual patterns were also found for training load and psychosocial stress and recovery in these weeks. Discussion: HRend shows no difference over the two weeks, illustrating that athletes reach the same intensity at the end of the test each time. However, in contrast to earlier research (Borresen et al., 2007), HRR in our study shows clear differences over two weeks. Individual differences in training load and psychosocial stress and recovery may explain these differences. So, when using the HRR regularly to monitor athletes, it is important to take training load and psychosocial stress and recovery into account before interpretation.
© Copyright 2012 17th Annual Congress of the European College of Sport Science (ECSS), Bruges, 4. -7. July 2012. Veröffentlicht von Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.