Postexercise heart rate recovery accelerates in strength-trained athletes

Area of Science:

• Exercise Physiology
• Cardiovascular Adaptation
• Sports Science

Background:

• Endurance exercise training leads to eccentric cardiac remodeling and improved vagally mediated heart rate (HR) recovery.
• The impact of strength training on postexercise HR recovery remains less understood.
• Cardiac morphology adapts differently to endurance (eccentric) versus strength (concentric) training.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether strength-trained athletes exhibit accelerated postexercise HR recovery.
• To compare HR recovery between strength-trained, endurance-trained, and sedentary individuals.

Main Methods:

• Compared three groups: strength-trained athletes (ST, N=12), endurance-trained athletes (ET, N=12), and sedentary controls (C, N=12).
• Measured HR and oxygen uptake during submaximal cycling exercise and the immediate postexercise period.
• Analyzed the time constant of postexercise HR decay as an index of vagally mediated HR recovery.

Main Results:

• Both ST and ET groups showed accelerated postexercise HR recovery compared to controls (lower time constant of HR decay).
• Left ventricular end-diastolic dimension was greater in ET than ST, but both were higher than controls.
• Left ventricular wall thickness was greater in ST than ET, and higher in both trained groups than controls.
• No significant differences in HR recovery indices were found between ST and ET groups.

Conclusions:

• Postexercise HR recovery is accelerated in both strength-trained and endurance-trained athletes.
• Strength training induces functional cardiac adaptations similar to endurance training regarding HR recovery.
• These findings highlight the cardiovascular benefits of different training modalities.