Individual assessment of stress and recovery in adolescent elite rowers using the heartrate recovery (HRR) during submaximal ergometer testing

INTRODUCTION: Accompanied monitoring of athletes recovery status is helpful to counteract overreaching and overtraining symptoms in athletes and has recently been highlighted in many works (Le Meur et al., 2016). The heartrate recovery (HRR) assessment dur submaximal training intensities hereby provides a promising approach to optimize training output (Le Meur et al., 2013). In this study, HRR was used to assess stress and recovery in adolescent elite-rowers. METHODS: Five adolescent elite-rowers (R1-R5; Age: 17.6 ± 1.9 years; Size: 178.1 ± 9.3cm, Mass: 67.1 ± 2.5 Kg) completed four weeks of rowing training, using different intensites (Le Meur et al., 2013). Hereby, the individual given workload of the first training week (TW1=Baseline=100%) was calculated as sRPE (Foster et al. 2001) and used for further workload calculations (TW2-TW4). TW2 and TW3 represented the overload-period (OL) with 140% workload and TW4 served as taper period (TP) with 60%. A submaximal ergometer test (Le Meur et al. 2013) was applied for HRR-measurement and maximal rowing performance was determined with a 1.000m All-Out test. Additionally, acute recovery and stress scale data were daily documented with questionnaires. RESULTS: Maximal rowing power (1.000m All-out) of all participants increased from 369.2 ± 61.2W (TW1) to 372.8 ± 70.4W after OL and 380.6 ± 62.8W after TP. Mean HRR increased for R1 and R3 (+13.6%) and decreased for R2, R4 and R5 (-12.8%) following OL. After TP, HRR values nearly returned to basic level for R1-R4 and remained increased for R5. CONCLUSION: In this study, a submaximal ergometer test (LeMeur et al. 2013) was adopted to rowing to assess stress and recovery. HRR showed interindividual differences inbetween the applied training intensites (Baseline-Overload-Taper) what might indicate different levels of adaptation and maladaptation in response to overload training. For individual interpretation of HRR in athletes, results necessarily should be linked to training history, performance output as well as psychometric data. Although only 5 athletes participated for this work, our results provide practical benefits for coaches using the heartrate recovery for training monitoring. Foster, C., Florhaug, J.A., Franklin, J., Gotschall, L., Hrovatin, L.A., Parker, S., Doleshal, P. and Dodge, C. (2001). A new approach to monitoring exercise training. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 15(1), 109-115. Le Meur, Y., Pichon, A., Schaal, K., Schmitt, L., Louis, J., Gueneron, J. et al. (2013). Evidence of parasympathetic hyperactivity in functionally overreached athletes. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, 45 (11), 2061-2071. Le Meur, Y., Buchheit, M., Aubry, A., Coutts, A.J. and Hausswirth, C. (2017). Assessing overreaching with HRR: what is the minimal exercise intensity required? International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, 12(4), 569-573