Key result
Running on a 400-m track elicited significantly higher speed sample entropy and heart rate complexity compared to running on usual or unusual outdoor routes.
Why the study?
The study aimed to determine how varying environmental familiarity and sensorimotor stimuli affect runners' speed, heart rate regularity degree, and short-term memory.
Does running in unusual routes or a 400-m track alter heart rate and speed regularity and short-term memory compared to usual routes in amateur runners?
Does running in unusual routes or a 400-m track alter heart rate and speed regularity and short-term memory compared to usual routes in amateur runners?
Absolute Event Rate: 0.81% vs 0.22%
p-value: p=<0.001
Running in different environments alters the complexity of heart rate and speed regulation, with unusual routes potentially enhancing short-term memory performance compared to usual routes.
Ecological psychology suggests performer-environment relationship is the appropriate scale for examining the relationship between perception, action and cognition. Developing performance requires variation in practice in order to design the attractor-fluctuation landscape. The present study aimed to identify the effects of varying levels of familiarity and sensorimotor stimuli within the environment in runners' speed and heart rate (HR) regularity degree, and short-term memory Twelve amateur runners accomplished three 45-min running trials in their usual route, in an unusual route, and an athletics 400-m track, wearing a GPS and an HR monitor. Sample entropy (SampEn) and complexity index (CI), over speed and HR, were calculated. Pre and post-trial, participants performed the Backward Digit Span task for cognitive assessment. Higher entropies were found for the 400-m track, compared to the usual and unusual routes. Usual routes increased speed SampEn (63% of chances), but decreased HR CI when compared to unusual routes (60% of chances). Runners showed higher overall short-term memory performance after unusual routes, when compared to usual routes (85% of chances), indicating positive relation to attentional control. The contexts of practice may contribute to change predictability from single to multiple timescales. Thus, by considering that time structuring issues can help diagnosing habituation of training routes, this study brings novel information to the long-term process of training.
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Exel et al. (2019) studied Healthy amateur runners (n=12). Running in different environments (unusual route and 400-m track) vs. Usual training route was evaluated on Speed sample entropy (SampEn) (p=<0.001). Running on a 400-m track elicited significantly higher speed sample entropy and heart rate complexity compared to running on usual or unusual outdoor routes.
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