1Associate Professor, Department of Physiology, T.S. Mishra Medical College and Hospital, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh
2Professor, Department of Physiology, SGT Medical College, Hospital and Research Institute, Gurgaon, Haryana
3Assistant Professor, Department of Physiology, GCRB Medical College, Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh
4Associate Professor, Department of Anatomy, SHKM Government Medical College, Nuh, Haryana
*Corresponding author email id: lion2ch@gmail.com
Online published on 13 April, 2018.
The purpose of this study was to investigate heart rate variability at rest among the basketball players in comparison to physically fit non-athletes as controls.
The cases were male basketball players with lack of any history of smoking, structural cardiac, cerebrovascular, chronic renal or hepatic diseases and malignancy studying in 1st Year MBBS in a Medical College in North India. Controls were male healthy non-players.
There was no significant difference in age, height, weight and BMI between the groups (p>0.05). Heart rate at rest was significantly lower among players (p=0.0001) and square root of the mean squared difference of successive normal-to-normal intervals (RMSSD) at rest was significantly lower among basketball players than controls (p=0.03).
Analysis of change in RR interval demonstrated that exercise in the form of basketball game induces a resting bradycardia accompanied by increased cardiac vagal modulation in healthy individuals. Statistically significant lower values for heart rate and RMSSD were observed among basketball players as compared to controls.
Basketball players, Case-control, Heart rate variability
