Effects of passive rest and vibration platform methods on heart rate variability after high-intensity exercises in football referees

This study aims to investigate the effects of passive recovery and vibration platform methods performed by football referees after high-intensity exercise on heart rate variability (HRV). Thirteen male referees competing at the classification level affiliated to the Turkish Football Federation with an age of 23.77±6.07 years, a referee resume of 5.69±4.7 years, a height of 179.23±5 cm and a body weight of 75.15±11.08, participated in the study voluntarily. The study was carried out in two stages with a cross-sectional design. In order to obtain relevant data from the participants, polar watches were placed on their wrists and chest straps were placed on their chests to determine the resting heart rate (HR) numbers and HR at the end of the test, in the middle and at the end of the recovery methods in both stages. At the end of the running test, the maximal HR numbers of the participants were determined and a predetermined group participated in the passive recovery method and the other group participated in the vibrating platform method for 15 minutes. In the second stage, all test applications and data collection processes continued in the same way. In order to determine the effectiveness of the parasympathetic nervous system during recovery methods, the HR numbers recorded by the chest tapes were recorded in milliseconds and rMSSD, SDNN and pNN50 data were determined from the Kubios program within the scope of HR. Normality and homogeneity of the data were determined by Shapiro-Wilk and Levene tests, respectively. The obtained data were analyzed by two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and paired comparisons were analyzed by paired T-test. The effects of passive recovery and vibrating platform methods on recovery were found to be statistically significant (p<0.05). HR numbers in the middle and end of the passive recovery method were significantly different compared to the values in the middle and end of the vibrating platform method (p<0.05). Although there was a numerical difference between the methods in terms of HR, no statistically significant difference was found (p>0.05). As a result, it was determined in this study that the passive recovery method performed after a high-intensity exercise reduced the number of HRs more rapidly and accelerated recovery compared to the vibrating platform method. In terms of HRs, it was observed that there was no positive effect between the methods.