The effects of a 3-day mountain bike cycling race on the autonomic nervous system (ANS) and heart rate variability in amateur cyclists: a prospective quantitative research design

Table 1 Changes in Time domain measures from baseline to 24-h post-race (n = 16)

	HR (bpm)		RR-intervals (ms)		SDNN (ms)		NN50 (no.)		RMSSD (ms)
Measurement	Mean ± SD	p value	Mean ± SD	p value	Mean ± SD	p value	Mean ± SD	p value	Mean ± SD	p value
Time domain measures
Baseline	59.50 ± 8.45	–	1031.81 ± 150.00	–	47.63 ± 21.57	–	47.25 ± 50.01	–	43.69 ± 30.16	–
Day 1	82.00 ± 8.66	< 0.001*	738.90 ± 71.83	< 0.001*	23.81 ± 10.18	< 0.001*	5.56 ± 13.79	< 0.01*	38.06 ± 103.32	0.84
Day 2	89.00 ± 9.00	< 0.001*	681.75 ± 69.04	< 0.001*	20.44 ± 11.12	< 0.001*	2.56 ± 3.58	< 0.001*	11.56 ± 5.53	< 0.001*
Day 3	88.06 ± 8.65	< 0.001*	688.88 ± 70.23	< 0.001*	22.06 ± 17.33	< 0.001*	7.69 ± 19.31	< 0.01*	16.50 ± 17.49	< 0.01*
24-Hour post-race	65.38 ± 8.40	0.03*	931.75 ± 125.36	0.03*	43.44 ± 21.69	0.57	27.60 ± 41.07	0.10	34.44 ± 25.18	0.23

HR heart rate; SDNN standard deviation of the sequence of normal-to-normal intervals; NN50 number of pairs of successive R–R interval which differ more than 50 ms; RMSSD square root of the mean squared differences between successive R–R intervals, ms milliseconds, no. number
*Level of significant differences between baseline and each race day (p ≤ 0.05)

ISSN: 2052-1847