Resting Heart Rate Measurement in Elite Athletes during COVID-19 Lockdown: The Impact of Decreased Physical Activity

Robin Pla, Laurent Bosquet, Anaël Aubry, Jean-François Toussaint and Adrien Sedeaud
Additional contact information
Robin Pla: French Swimming Federation, 92110 Clichy, France
Laurent Bosquet: Lab MOVE (EA6314), Faculty of Sports Sciences, University of Poitiers, 86000 Poitiers, France
Anaël Aubry: French Swimming Federation, 92110 Clichy, France
Jean-François Toussaint: Institut de Recherche Médicale en bioEpidémiologie du Sport, INSEP (EA7329), 75001 Paris, France
Adrien Sedeaud: Institut de Recherche Médicale en bioEpidémiologie du Sport, INSEP (EA7329), 75001 Paris, France

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 5, 1-10

Abstract: The purpose was to observe the effects of a four-week lockdown on the resting heart rate (RHR) and well-being perception of elite swimmers. Twenty elite swimmers performed RHR measurements upon waking in supine and standing positions. Baseline values and those measured after four weeks of lockdown were compared. Swimmers completed a questionnaire on their training volume and state of well-being. During the lockdown, swimmers reported a weekly mean physical activity of 10.4 ± 3.6 h (an estimated reduction of 254% compared to their usual training volume). After four weeks of lockdown, RHR in the supine position increased by more than two beats per minute (58.8 ± 8.2 vs. 56.5 ± 7.4 bpm, p < 0.05). In the standing position, RHR increased by almost 15 beats per minute (103.3 ± 13.2 vs. 88.4 ± 9.4 bpm, p < 0.0001). Fifty percent of these athletes expressed a decrease in well-being. These results underline that the lockdown circumstances induced a large reduction in parasympathetic activity in elite athletes, which was associated with a decrease in training volume. This increase in RHR may reflect that a highatly strenuous environment and maintaining a high level of physical activity in this population could be favorable to preserve physical and psychological health.

Keywords: physiology; training load; well-being; swimmers; heart (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/5/2970/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/5/2970/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:5:p:2970-:d:513522

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().