Date
8-20-2026
Department
School of Health Sciences
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy in Health Sciences (PhD)
Chair
Jessica Savage
Keywords
heart rate recovery, recovery posture, high-intensity interval training, collegiate athletes, parasympathetic reactivation, autonomic recovery
Disciplines
Medicine and Health Sciences | Physiology
Recommended Citation
Ferriter, Matthew Scott, "The Posture of Recovery; A Quantitative Analysis of Post-Exercise Heart Rate Restorateion in College Athletes" (2026). Doctoral Dissertations and Projects. 8752.
https://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/doctoral/8752
Abstract
Heart rate recovery (HRR) has been frequently used as a noninvasive indicator of autonomic reactivity following high-intensity exercise. However, limited research has explored the effects of post-exercise body posture (PEBP) on HRR following acute bouts of high-intensity exercise in collegiate athletes. The purpose of this quantitative repeated-measures experimental study was to investigate if recovery posture (supine [SUP]; tripod [TRI]; standing upright [SU]) affected HRR during the first five minutes following a standardized high-intensity interval training (HIIT) session. Thirty-seven collegiate athletes completed three total testing sessions. Participants completed all three recovery posture conditions in a randomized order. Heart rate (HR) was assessed at rest, immediately post-exercise at 1-, 2-, 3-, 4-, and 5-minute recovery, as well as peak HR utilizing Polar H10 HR monitors. HRR was defined as the difference between peak exercise HR and HR at each time point (Yuan et al., 2019). A 3 posture × 5 time repeated-measures ANOVA was used to analyze HR data. There were statistically significant main effects for posture, Wilks’ Λ = .273, F(2, 35) = 46.50, p < .001, partial η² = .727, and time, Wilks’ Λ = .064, F(4, 33) = 120.75, p < .001, partial η² = .936. The interaction between posture and time was also significant, Wilks’ Λ = .537, F(8, 29) = 3.13, p = .011, partial η² = .463. Pairwise comparisons using Bonferroni adjustments demonstrated significantly greater HRR for SUP compared to TRI and SU. HRR was also significantly greater for TRI compared to SU. Recovery posture had a significant effect on early HRR following standardized HIIT with SUP resulting in the greatest response during the five-minute recovery period. The results of this study suggest that PEBP may be a practical recovery variable that coaches, athletes, and sport performance professionals can manipulate immediately following high-intensity exercise to support quicker autonomic recovery.
