Why the study?
Heart rate variability may reveal physiological adaptation to exercise, but whether it predicts sport results and whether resting or routine measurements are relevant remained unknown.
Does heart rate variability at rest or during routines predict sport performance in junior rhythmic gymnasts?
Does heart rate variability at rest or during routines predict sport performance in junior rhythmic gymnasts?
Resting heart rate variability parameters may serve as a complementary tool to predict competition results in junior rhythmic gymnasts.
Resting HRV parameters were associated with gymnasts' competition results; hypothesis-generating and requires prospective validation before any training application.
BACKGROUND: Heart rate variability may reveal sensitive information about the athletes’ physiological adaptation when exercising for sport performance. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to demonstrate whether heart rate variability (HRV) measurements were able to predict sport results and determine which type of measurements, at rest or during routines, were relevant in anticipating the performance. METHOD: Ten female gymnasts, aged 11–14 years old, and 16 age-matched non-active adolescents participated in this study. HRV was measured at rest for 10 minutes and throughout the training routines one week prior to competition. Correlations and multivariate analysis determined the parameters predicting performance. Significance was set at [Formula: see text] 0.05. Results: At rest, the gymnasts displayed higher HRV values than controls. At rest, sympathetic parameters correlated with sport results whereas no correlation was observed during routines. The magnitude of the predictive factors highlighted the importance of Ln SD2 (coefficient [Formula: see text] [Formula: see text]117, 95CI [Formula: see text]130 to [Formula: see text]106), Ln RMSSD (coefficient [Formula: see text] [Formula: see text]24.5, 95CI [Formula: see text]29.2 to [Formula: see text]19.8), Ln pNN50 (coefficient [Formula: see text] [Formula: see text]10.7, 95CI [Formula: see text]11.5 to [Formula: see text]9.9), and Ln Total power (coefficient [Formula: see text] [Formula: see text]2.5, 95CI [Formula: see text]13.4 to [Formula: see text]11.5). CONCLUSIONS: HRV at rest may predict results in competition, being a complementary tool for coaches.
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Urzeală et al. (2020) studied this question.
Synapse has enriched 5 closely related papers on similar clinical questions. Consider them for comparative context: