Athletes & Heart Rate Recovery
Heart-rate recovery refers to how quickly your pulse rate returns to normal after peak exercise. The fitter a person is, the more quickly her heart rate recovers.
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Athletic Significance
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Many sports such as soccer, cycling, and volleyball require intermittent bouts of intense exercise followed by periods of less action, during which the athlete can recover. The faster an athlete's heart rate can return to normal, the better she will perform in the next surge.
Training and Heart Rate
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Exercise increases the amount of blood your heart can pump, delivering more oxygen with each beat. At submaximal effort, a well-conditioned heart needs to pump fewer times to meet the body's demand for blood and the nutrients it carries.
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Type of Exercise
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A 2007 study by the American College of Sports Medicine found that both strength training and aerobic training improve heart-rate recovery.
Mental Heart-Rate Training
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Heart rate is highly susceptible to state of mind. Athletes can train themselves to lower their heart rate more quickly by concentrating on feedback from their bodies (see second link in References for more information).
Medical Significance
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Cardiovascular fitness is closely correlated with life expectancy. A 1999 article in the New England Journal of Medicine concluded that heart-rate recovery rates predict mortality risk.
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References
- American College of Sports Medicine: Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise: Postexercise Heart Rate Recovery Accelerates in Strength-Trained Athletes
- Peak Performance: Improve Heart-Rate Recovery
- New England Journal of Medicine; Heart-Rate Recovery Immediately after Exercise as a Predictor of Mortality
Resources
- Photo Credit Image by Flickr.com, courtesy of Bruce
