Comparison of Heart Rate Intensity in Practice, Conditioning, and Games in NCAA Division I Women Basketball Players

Background: An athlete’s heart rate (HR) is an important variable in quantifying the intensity of exercise. Workouts that increase HR are an important stimulus for training adaptations and conditioning. At other times, workouts that do not overly stress the HR may be desired to allow for recovery. The principle of specificity emphasizes that athletes should train specific to the way they will need to perform in competition. Because of this, monitoring HR during training and competition can be a useful tool. While exercise intensity in endurance sports has been previously investigated, less is known regarding the HR response in team sports, particularly women’s basketball. Purpose: Compare the average HR response to basketball training and competition in: 1) open gym 5 on 5 scrimmage, 2) an actual basketball game against a different opponent, and 3) conditioning session. Methods: We had an NCAA Division I women’s basketball team wear heart rate monitors for open gym scrimmages, actual games, and conditioning practices. For the open gym sessions, the team scrimmaged against each other 5v5 for ~90 minutes and the average HR over 4 open gym sessions was determined. For the actual games against other opponents, the average HR response for the team was averaged over 3 games. The conditioning sessions consisted of repeated, intermittent short sprint efforts over the course of 30-60 minutes, and the average HR over 7 conditioning sessions was calculated. The data that was collected was added to a spreadsheet where we used it to find the team’s average for both the scrimmages, games, and conditioning. Results: During open gym scrimmages and conditioning sessions the women had a higher heart rate average as a whole team compared to the games. The games had the lowest HR out of all three conditions that were collected.