Continuous heart rate monitoring over 1 week in teenagers aged 11–16 years

Abstract

Heart rate (HR) was monitored in 66 French pubertal boys (B, n=28) and girls (G, n=38) aged 11–16 years to evaluate habitual physical activity (HPA) over a 1-week period in the winter. The HR and the percentage of heart rate reserve (%HRR) were taken to be indexes of the metabolic activity for the whole day and for the different parts of the day. The HPA was evaluated from the time spent each day below 50%HRR, between 50%–70%HRR and above 70%HRR, which related to the time spent in no or low physical activity (NLPA), moderate physical activity (MPA) and vigorous physical activity (VPA), respectively. No sex differences were observed in the average %HRR each day {%HRR_mean, [B 30 (SD 4)%; G 32 (SD 4)%]} or in NLPA [B 715 (SD 61) min, G 711 (SD 81) min] and VPA [B 19 (SD 16) min, G 21 (SD 21) min] throughout the week. During school days, daily %HRR_mean was 7% smaller in 14–16 year olds compared to 11–13 year olds. This was linked to a decrease in MPA and a concomitant increase in NLPA (P<0.05). Daily %HRR_mean varied significantly during the week (range: 28–34% HRR). There were significant differences among the periods of the day (P<0.05). The HR was the greatest during physical education lessons [128 (SD 11) beats · min⁻¹], recreation [113 (SD 15) beats · min⁻¹] and lunch break [108 (SD 12) beats · min⁻¹] and the lowest during the evening [94 (SD 10) beats · min⁻¹]. It was only during the lunch breaks that %HRR_mean was greater (P<0.05) on school days than on free days. Of all the teenagers studied 32% were considered active during the week.