Blood pressure and heart rate variability to assess autonomic response to an acute bout of high intensity interval exercise in healthy young adults

Abstract Autonomic nervous system (ANS) activity causes acute variations in blood pressure (BP) and heart rate (HR). These systems are challenged during high intensity interval exercise (HIIE). However, BP variability (BPV) and HR variability (HRV) response to HIIE is unknown. We characterized BPV and HRV during an acute HIIE bout using spectral low frequency [LF] and high frequency [HF] domains. We hypothesized that BPV would increase and HRV would decrease during high‐intensity and active‐recovery of HIIE compared to baseline [BL] and BPV would reduce and HRV would increase during cool down, post‐HIIE, and 30 min post‐HIIE compared to BL. HIIE involved 10 min of alternating high‐intensity and active‐recovery (approximately 70% and 10% of Wattmax) on a recumbent stepper. We did a secondary analysis on 23 datasets. The participants were 25 ± 1.5 years, 48% females. Our results showed high‐intensity BPV LF was not significantly different from BL while HF increased. HRV LF and HF decreased compared to BL. During active‐recovery, LF and HF for BPV and HRV increased greater than high‐intensity. HRV LF and HF returned to BL after 30 min of recovery, whereas BPV HF was higher compared to BL. The rapid switching during HIIE uniquely modulates cardiovascular and ANS.