Revisiting dose–response relationships between heart rate zones, TRIMPs, and aerobic-related physiological and performance markers in elite team sports
Buchheit M, Akubat I, Ellis M, Campos M, Rabbani A, Castagna C, Malone S. Revisiting dose–response relationships between heart rate zones, TRIMPs, and aerobic-related physiological and performance markers in elite team sports. Sport Perform & Sci Reports 2025 Oct;269:v1.
Time to Drop GPS and Go Back to the Chest Strap?
If you think you can use GPS to estimate internal load, what are you really measuring?
Main points:
- HR still offers the best proxy for cardiovascular and metabolic stress
- 30 min/week >90% HRmax = maintain aerobic fitness
- Add 10 extra min/week = ~+1–2% gain
- iTRIMP and THRZ both show dose–response, but only THRZ is practical for daily use
This paper revisits the upper-left quadrant, i.e., metabolic and cardiovascular load, and makes the case for bringing HR back into athlete monitoring.
Useful for both performance development and return-to-play, and better understanding what actually drives aerobic fitness.
#sportsperformance #heartrate #internalload #trainingmonitoring #TRIMP #THRZ #returntoplay #footballfitness
