Monitoring Responses to Basic Military Training with Heart Rate Variability

Abstract

HRV was predicted by subjective recruit responses to BMT workloads rather than objective measures of physical activity. Improvements in cardiorespiratory fitness depicted recruits who experienced enough stress to facilitate physiological adaptation, which was reflected by a reduction in HRV during BMT. Monitoring HRV and HRV in relation to interbeat interval length may provide a better tool for determining allostatic load than HRV alone.