Heart rate variability to assess ventilatory thresholds in professional basketball players

Abstract

PURPOSE: The aim of this study was to determine if heart rate variability (HRV) during incremental test could be used to estimate ventilatory threshold (VT) in professional basketball players, with sufficient precision to be used in their training. Furthermore, the second aim was to analyse the association between HRV and 3 methods of VT determination by gas analysis. METHODS: ) was used to detect differences between data and the strength of each relationship. The mean of absolute differences and Bland-Altman analysis were used to evaluate whether there was agreement. RESULTS: = 0.90). CONCLUSION: These findings provide a practical, inexpensive approach for evaluating specific training loads when determining VT2 in basketball players. Therefore, HRV is an alternative method to determine VT2 without the application of expensive technology that limits its use to laboratories.