Heart Rate and Heart Rate Variability of Amateur Show Jumping Horses Competing on Different Levels.
Authors: Szabó Csaba, Vizesi Zsolt, Vincze Anikó
Journal: Animals : an open access journal from MDPI
Summary
# Editorial Summary: Heart Rate Variability in Show Jumping Competition Researchers assessed cardiac responses in 14 amateur show jumpers across three competition heights (100, 120, and 130 cm) to determine whether heart rate variability (HRV) parameters could detect workload differences that standard heart rate measurements might miss. Continuous heart rate monitoring was conducted throughout discrete exercise phases—warm-up, rest, jumping course, and cool-down—with analysis of multiple HRV indices including RMSSD, pNN50, SD1, and SD2 alongside conventional metrics. Whilst absolute heart rate and maximum heart rate failed to differentiate between competition levels, several HRV parameters proved sensitive discriminators: SD1, maximum RR interval, RMSSD, pNN50, and very-low-frequency power showed significant differences between 100 cm and 120 cm competitors, with SD1 emerging as particularly responsive to competition intensity and SD2 reflecting exercise phase transitions. For practitioners working with lower-level competition horses, these findings suggest that HRV analysis offers substantially greater resolution than conventional heart rate assessment alone when fine-tuning fitness protocols, identifying overreach risk, or objectively documenting training progression—particularly valuable given that subjective fitness evaluation may mask subtle but functionally important cardiac adaptations or maladaptations in amateur populations.
Read the full abstract on PubMed
Practical Takeaways
- •Use heart rate variability metrics rather than heart rate alone when fine-tuning training intensity for amateur show jumpers, as HRV can detect subtle workload differences that HR cannot
- •SD1 measurements may help objectively assess whether a horse is being appropriately challenged at their competition level
- •Monitor SD2 changes across different exercise phases to optimize conditioning protocols and cool-down procedures
Key Findings
- •Heart rate variability parameters (SD1, RMSSD, pNN50, %VLF) were significantly different between 100 cm and 120 cm competition levels, while average and maximum heart rates showed no significant differences
- •SD1 parameter was sensitive for detecting competition level differences in lower-level show jumpers
- •SD2 parameter was sensitive for detecting different exercise phases (warm-up, rest, jumping, cool-down)
- •Heart rate variability is more sensitive than heart rate alone for detecting small workload differences in amateur-level show jumpers