THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HEART RATE VARIABILITY AND ATHLETIC PERFORMANCE IN BASKETBALL PLAYERS

Purpose: For basketball players, improving athletic performance is one of the main keys to success and the autonomic nervous system can also affect athletic performance. Heart rate variability can be associated with sportive performance as a marker of the autonomic nervous system. Our study was planned to investigate the relationship between heart rate variability method and basketball-specific sportive performance. Methods: The study was conducted with 20 male basketball players. Vertical jump and seated chest pass test were used to evaluate strength, T agility test was used to evaluate agility, lower and upper extremity Y balance tests were used to evaluate balance and Johnson Basketball Test Battery was used to evaluate basketball specific performances. Autonomic nervous system was evaluated by heart rate variability. The relationships between heart rate variability (HRV) results and performance results were analyzed. Results: Correlations were found at various levels between the vertical jump and seated chest pass tests and some parameters of the HRV, between the T agility test and some parameters of the HRV, and between the Johnson Basketball Test Battery and some parameters of the HRV (p0.05). Conclusion: Since the results of our study show that HRV may be related to performance, it is suggested that measuring HRV assessments at different periods during the whole season may be useful for athlete evaluations. However, it is thought that more detailed studies are needed in this field for clearer information.