HEART RATE VARIABILITY AND TRAINING LOAD AMONG NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION DIVISION 1 COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYERS THROUGHOUT SPRING CAMP

The 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), MID-SKILL (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.