Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 3, 2026
Conducting Maximal and Submaximal Endurance Exercise Testing to Measure Physiological and Biological Responses to Acute Exercise in Humans
Published on: October 17, 2018
Reliability of different models to assess heart rate recovery after submaximal bicycle exercise
Alessandro Arduini1, Mari-Carmen Gomez-Cabrera, Marco Romagnoli
1Department of Physiology, University of Valencia, Spain. alessandro.arduini@uv.es
Objectives:
Different models to assess HR recovery have been developed but knowledge of their reliability is poor at different submaximal exercise intensities and recovery durations. Our aim was to determine the reliability of HR recovery after a test on a cycle ergometer.
Design:
Twenty-one healthy individuals performed a submaximal exercise at 65% and 80% HR(max) followed by passive recovery. The exercise was repeated (retest) within 2 weeks to assess reliability.
Method:
HR recovery was assessed by 8 models, based on monoexponential kinetics or absolute recovery (recovered HR at fix time points). Intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) and standard error of measurement (SEM, %SEM) were used to address reliability of measurements.
Results:
We found that: (1) assessment of HR recovery after 80% HR(max) exercise leads to more reliable values than after 65% HR(max) exercise (mean ICC: 0.827 vs. 0.747); (2) a longer recovery time increases the absolute consistency of the measurement (%SEM: 26.7 at 60s, 19.5 at 120s and 16.3 at 180s, irrespective of model or exercise intensity); (3) T30(min) is more reliable than T30 (ICC: 0.691 vs. 0.528; %SEM: 28.5 vs. 70.8) for the calculation of the fast component of HR recovery (HR kinetics calculated over ≤ 60s) after exercise.
Conclusions:
A good sensitivity of measurement--large ICC and small SEM--is obtained for analysis of HR recovery after submaximal exercises on the cycle ergometer, especially for internal workloads of 80% HR(max). At this workload, consistency of results increases for recoveries of longer duration.
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