HEart rate variability and training load among national collegiate athletic association division 1 college football players throughout spring camp

Flatt, AA, Esco, MR, Allen, JR, Robinson, JB, Earley, RL, Fedewa, MV, Bragg, A, Keith, CM, andWingo, JE. Heart rate variability and training load among National Collegiate Athletic Association Division 1 college football players throughout spring camp. J Strength Cond Res 32(11): 3127-3134, 2018The purpose of this study was to determine whether recovery of cardiac-autonomic activity to baseline occurs between consecutive-day training sessions among positional groups of a collegiate football team during Spring camp. A secondary aim was to evaluate relationships between chronic (i.e., 4-week) heart rate variability (HRV) and training load parameters. Baseline HRV (lnRMSSD-BL) was compared with HRV after 20 hours of recovery before next-day training (lnRMSSDpost20) among positional groups composed of SKILL (n = 11), MIDSKILL (n = 9), and LINEMEN (n = 5) with a linear mixed model and effect sizes (ES). Pearson and partial correlations were used to quantify relationships between chronic mean and coefficient of variation (CV) of lnRMSSD (lnRMSSD-chronic and lnRMSSDcv, respectively) with the mean and CV of PlayerLoad (PL-chronic and PL-cv, respectively). A position 3 time interaction was observed for lnRMSSD (p = 0.01). lnRMSSD-BL was higher than lnRMSSDpost20 for LINEMEN (p <0.01; ES = large), whereas differences for SKILL and MID-SKILL were not statistically different (p >0.05). Players with greater body mass experienced larger reductions in lnRMSSD (r = 20.62, p <0.01). Longitudinally, lnRMSSDcv was significantly related to body mass (r = 0.48) and PL-chronic (r = 20.60). After adjusting for body mass, lnRMSSDcv and PL-chronic remained significantly related (r = 20.43). The 20-hour recovery time between training sessions on consecutive days may not be adequate for restoration of cardiac-parasympathetic activity to baseline among LINEMEN. Players with a lower chronic training load throughout camp experienced greater fluctuation in lnRMSSD (i.e., lnRMSSDcv) and vice versa. Thus, a capacity for greater chronic workloads may be protective against perturbations in cardiac-autonomic homeostasis among American college football players.