Vagal Flexibility during Exercise: Impact of Training, Stress,Anthropometric Measures, and Gender

We evaluated the effect of physical training, stress, anthropometric measures, and gender upon the reactivity and recovery of theheart rate variability (HRV) during a cardiorespiratory test. Professors (N=54) were evaluated using the following: physicaltraining: time, frequency, and length of physical exercise; resting heart rate (HR); maximum HR; and recovery HR; stress: stresssymptoms, work stress, vital events, and perceived stress; anthropometric measures: body mass index, waist circumference(WC), waist-hip ratio (WHR), and fat percentage (FP); and HRV before, during, and after the test. The HRV decreased duringand increased after the test. Increased recovery HR was associated with the decreased vagal output during the test, anddecreased recovery HR was associated with the increased posttest vagal input. The higher the work control and stress symptomsof men and the higher the perceived stress for both genders, the lower the vagal output during the test. The lower stresssymptom and work control of men and the lower work demand of women were associated with the posttest vagal increase. Theincreased WC and decreased WHR of men were associated with the lower vagal output during the test and the lower posttestvagal increase. The lower FP also was associated with the greater recovery