Time-span of heart rate recovery and its relationship to body composition in various ages: upper body versus lower body exercise

The aim of study was to determine the relationship between time-span of heart rate recovery (HRR) and selected body composition factors following two types of exercise among male with different ages. Thirty-six healthy male were assigned to three groups: children, adult, and elderly and performed a continuous incremental exercise on arm and cycle ergometers. HRR was calculated as the difference between peak HR during the test and HR in 1 min and HR in 2 min after exercise protocols. A body composition analysis system provides a display of averaged data for selected body composition factors including body fat percentage, body mass index, and waist-to-hip ratio. The present data showed that HRR was faster in children than adult following exercise protocols and also HRR was higher in arm cranking compared to cycling protocol. In addition, HRR is negatively related to selected body composition factors among male in all ages. The different exercise protocols for upper and lower body (arm cranking and cycling), had no effect on this negative correlation. Finally, the finding of current study suggests that higher body composition factors (BMI, BF %, and WHR) may contribute to poorer parasympathetic function in adult and elderly than children.