Abstract
Background
Distance running performance is a viable model of human locomotion.
Methodology/Principal Findings
To evaluate the physiologic strain during competitions ranging from 5–100 km, we evaluated heart rate (HR) records of competitive runners (n = 211). We found evidence that: 1) physiologic strain (% of maximum HR (%HRmax)) increased in proportional manner relative to distance completed, and was regulated by variations in running pace; 2) the %HRmax achieved decreased with relative distance; 3) slower runners had similar %HRmax response within a racing distance compared to faster runners, and despite differences in pace, the profile of %HRmax during a race was very similar in runners of differing ability; and 4) in cases where there was a discontinuity in the running performance, there was evidence that physiologic effort was maintained for some time even after the pace had decreased.
Conclusions/Significance
The overall results suggest that athletes are actively regulating their relative physiologic strain during competition, although there is evidence of poor regulation in the case of competitive failures.
Citation: Esteve-Lanao J, Lucia A, deKoning JJ, Foster C (2008) How Do Humans Control Physiological Strain during Strenuous Endurance Exercise? PLoS ONE 3(8):
e2943.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0002943
Editor: Conrad P. Earnest, Pennington Biomedical Research Center, United States of America
Received: February 1, 2008; Accepted: July 22, 2008; Published: August 13, 2008
Copyright: © 2008 Esteve-Lanao et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Funding: The authors have no support or funding to report.
Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Description
Study evaluates heart rate records of competitive runners during various distances.