Effects of Single Trial of Heart-Rate Biofeedback during Ramp Bicycling Exercise

Abstract

We examined whether a single trial of heart-rate biofeedback was effective to attenuate heart-rate responses during ramp exercise despite a lack of biofeedback conditioning. 35 healthy women exercised in two trials while they tried to attenuate their heart rate by watching biofeedback signals or they only exercised without biofeedback signals (Control trial). 17 subjects were able to attenuate the heart rate during Biofeedback trial (Can group) whereas the remaining subjects were not (Cannot group). In the Can group, the magnitude of heart-rate attenuation in all exercise time was equivalent to 11 ±3% of the preexercise heart rate. Since the heart-rate reduction was similar to that achieved after the heart-rate biofeedback conditioning in previous studies, it is likely that the single trial of heart-rate biofeedback was effective for almost half the subjects to attenuate the heart-rate responses during ramp exercise.