Autonomic support of endurance, strength and speed performance in athletes

Abstract

Examining the autonomic support of muscular activity in athletes enables an assessment of the ANS impact on achieving a high-level of sports performance at different ages, an identification of interaction patterns between the ANS divisions in the process of short-term and long-term adaptation to muscular load, identifying the features of the cardiovascular system autonomic regulation in athletes training different physical performance Aim. To examine heart rate variability (HRV) changes in athletes depending on the training session mode. Material and methods. A total of 104 athletes (84 men and 20 women) were enrolled in the study: 63 – endurance-trained athletes, 31 – strength-trained and 10 – speed-trained athletes. The mean age of the athletes was 21.75 ± 3.32 years. Among them, there were Masters of Sports of International Class (MSIC) – 2 athletes, Masters of Sports (MS) - 25, Candidates Master of Sports (CMS) – 48, First-Class athletes – 29. All the athletes underwent HRV analysis on the device “Cardio+” (NPP “Metekol”, Nizhyn, Ukraine). Results. HRV in the endurance and strength athletes indicated a predominance of heart rate (HR) by 11.4 % (61.03 ± 10.19 vs. 68.00 ± 7.72 bpm, P = 0.004), Mode (Mo) value (954 (860; 1103) vs. 868 (798; 954) ms) by 9.0 % (P = 0.004) and shorter mean RR interval duration (Mean) by 11.7 % (1002.45 ± 168.59 vs. 885.22 ± 98.98 ms, P = 0.002) in comparison with the strength athletes. The endurance athletes had significantly lower values of SDNN by 7.6 % (P = 0.048), RMSSD by 35.5 % (P = 0.029), SDANN by 26.4 %, and the predominance of Mo by 4.1 % (P = 0.016) in contrast to the speed athletes. There was no statistically significant difference between other HRV parameters between the endurance and speed athletes. Comparison of HRV between the strength and speed athletes revealed that the strength athletes had significantly 8.8 % (P = 0.042) higher HR (68.00 ± 7.72 vs. 62.00 ± 7.14 bpm). Compared with the speed athletes, the strength athletes had significantly shorter RR interval duration (885.22 ± 98.98 vs. 969.56 ± 112.28 ms) by 9.5 % (P = 0.046), higher values of SDNN by 9.5 % (P = 0.017), RMSSD by 68.9 % (P = 0.012), SDANN by 71.8 % (P = 0.015), CVr, % by 15.0 % (P = 0.045), Mo by 5.4 % (P = 0.029) that was indicative of sympathetic hyperactivity in the strength athletes. Conclusions. The endurance and speed athletes did not differ from each other in all the spectral and the vast majority of time-domain HRV parameters, except for SDNN, RMSSD, SDANN andMo. The strength athletes differed from the endurance athletes by higher tone of the sympathetic arm of the ANS, as evidenced by significantly 11.4 % higher heart rate, 11.7 % shorter RR interval duration and 9.0 % lower Mo value. The speed and endurance athletes differed from the strength athletes by higher parasympathetic tone as evidenced by significantly 8.8 % (P = 0.042) lower heart rate, 9.5 % (P = 0.046), higher RR interval duration, values of SDNN by 9.5 % (P = 0.017), RMSSD by 68.9 % (P = 0.012), SDANN by 71.8 % (P = 0.015), CVr, % by 15.0 % (P = 0.045), Mo by 5.4 % (P = 0.029).

Keywords

• athletes
• endurance
• strength
• speed; heart rate variability