Abstract
The purpose of this study was to examine the cardiac autonomic responses of aerobically fit persons to the psychological stressor. Ten male college long distance runners (FIT) and 10 control college students (UNFIT) performed a 5-min stroop task as a psychological stressor. The spectral analysis of heart rate variability was used for providing the indicators of sympathetic and parasympathetic activity. FIT exhibited lower heart rate and greater parasympathetic activity than UNFIT at rest. But FIT exhibited more increase in sympathetic activity and more decrease in parasympathetic activity than UNFIT to the task. These results suggested that cardiac autonomic responses to the psychological stressor were larger in aerobically fit persons.
