A Review of the Relationship between Heart Rate Monitoring, Training Load, and Injury in Field-Based Team Sport Athletes

Outdoor, field-based team sports have been a staple of American and international cultures throughout recorded history and are currently played by millions of athletes around the globe. In modern competition, it is critical for athletes and support staff such as coaches, strength and conditioning specialists, and medical personnel to cooperate to optimize competitive readiness and performance. Important variables that can enhance or reduce physiological adaptations related to these areas include the relationship between the prescribed training workload and potential injuries. Therefore, it is important to understand and modify these aspects to fit the unique needs of individual athletes and specific teams. Recent advancements in technology now allow aspects of performance to be monitored in real time via methods that are reliable, cost effective, and noninvasive. The purpose of this literature review is to summarize and elucidate the available information on the potential relationship between heart rate monitoring and training load and how it may be used to prevent, predict, or detect an injury among athletes who participate in field-based sports. Overall, results indicate that while such technology has been used to describe and prescribe training workload, little research has been done to monitor the relationship between these variables and proclivity for or recovery from injury. Future longitudinal studies that encapsulate and address the highly dynamic nature and relationship of these variables are needed to better understand how they interact. Such an understanding may allow personnel such as coaches and staff to better support athletes on and off the field.