Changes in wave parameters of heart rate among professional athletes performing cognitive and physical loads

The article describes a comparative analysis of changes in the regulation of heart rate among professional athletes in a state of cognitive and physical stress. The purpose of the study is to explore specific differences in wave parameters of heart rate variability both in the state of cognitive dissonance and when performing a dosed physical activity. The research involved two groups of athletes: 32 persons in the first group and 36 volunteer athletes in the second group. The subjects were males (mean age was 21±1.5 years) with a comparable level of physical performance, engaged in cyclic sports. The study was conducted in the afternoon at the same time; 2 hours before that, eating and physical activity were excluded. The duration of the study was about 30 minutes for each subject. The Valenta complex of functional diagnostics was used to register wave parameters of heart rate. The Kraepelin's arithmetic test was used as a cognitive load, and a standard veloergometric test PWC170 was used as a physical one. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test was used to characterize the differences and the Spearman's rank correlation coefficient — to analyze the relationship between the various indicators. The obtained data were processed using the STATISTICA 10 software package. It was shown that cognitive load reduced the proportion of high-frequency waves and increased the activity of low-frequency waves, but the total power of the spectrum was modulated individually. After the load test, the contribution of the low-frequency component of the heart rate variability significantly increased. A decrease in the total power of the spectrum was observed among all subjects of the second group. Thus, specific changes in the wave parameters of heart rate variability were discovered: each of them was comparable to those during cognitive and physical load.

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