Postexercise Heart Rate Measurement after Group Exercise

Abstract

Postexercise heart rate (HR) measurement by pulse palpation likely results in a HR estimate that is lower than the true exercise HR. The degree of inaccuracy is not well denned and may be depend on the time delay in measuring HR postexercise. PURPOSE: To measure the typical delay in obtaining postexercise HR by participants in a group exercise class and to determine if actual exercise HR (AEHR) can be predicted from immediate postexercise HR recovery (PEHR). METHODS: Forty-one females (19.9 ± 1.6 y) were filmed during exercise class; films were reviewed to determine time taken for each subject to obtain self- palpated HR (SPHR) at the exercise class mid-point (MP) and end-point (EP). HR was also recorded in 10 s intervals during and for 1 min after exercise with a HR monitor (HRM) to determine AEHR and PEHR, respectively. Subjects were blind to HRM measures. RESULTS: The average delay before obtaining MP and EP SPHR measures were 19.5 ± 4.0 s and 17.8 ± 3.9 s, respectively. Dependent sample t-tests revealed a significant difference (p <0.05) between the means for AEHR and SPHR at MP (169.4 ± 13.4 vs. 143.7 ± 23.2 bpm) and EP (165.5 ± 15.6 vs. 143.2 ± 19.3 bpm). Regression analyses showed that AEHR is predicted well from PEHR as determined with a HRM. The R-value ranged from 0.956 to 0.761 (p ≥ 0.01) when HR recovery was measured from 10 to 60 s postexercise in 10 s increments. CONCLUSIONS: The significant difference between AEHR and SPHR is likely attributable to the near 20 s delay before a typical person obtains a palpated HR postexercise. In addition, the near linear decline in HR in the first min after exercise can be used to predict AEHR. Future studies should determine if SPHR can be used to predict AEHR. Supported by PolarUSA.