INTENSITY AND HEART RATE RESPONSE RELATIONSHIP IN DIFFERENT TREADMILL PROTOCOLS

The aim of this study was to define the correlation between the levels of exercise intensity of athletes using different protocols and the heart rate responses (HRR). 13 male athletes (age: 22,59±4,25 years, training age: 13,25±3,2 years, height: 175,55±7,10 cm, weight: 74,56±9,98 kg, body composition: 10,26±3,68 participated in running tests every other day on different treadmill protocols which are continous, interval and incremental. A 5 minute warm-up run was applied at 9km/h before continous and interval protocols and at 7km/h before incremental protocol. After that, the speed of treadmill was increased by 1km/h at at every minute during 5 minutes and then by 0.5km/h every minute in continuous protocol. In interval protocol, however, the speed was increased by 1km/h per minute and before each increase, a 30-second passive rest was given. In incremental protocol, the treadmill speed was set at 8.05km/h with the gradient starting at 0% for the first 3 minutes and then it was raised to 2.5%. Afterwards, it was increased by 2.5% every 2 minutes. At the end of all running protocols, the speed was decreased to 4 km/h and the athletes had a 5-minute cool-down run. A regression analysis was used to find the correlation coefficient on the increase and decrease of heart rate values. In conclusion, it was observed that maximum heart rate value was reached fastest in continuous protocol, regarding the percentage of intensity intervals, as the duration of the threshold time is longer in continuous and interval running protocols than that of the incremental running, it can be concluded that these two running protocols produce higher exercise intensity.