Biathlon Performance: Heart rate, hit rate, speed and physiological variables

Introduction and Purpose: Biathlon is a sport that combines cross-country skiing and rifle shooting.

The athlete is fast in the cross-country skiing section, in the gun shooting section, the heart rate should

be low. This study aims to determine the hitting rate of the shots made with different training loads on

low altitude in elite biathletes in terms of maximum speed and physiological variables.

Materials and Methods: To evaluate shooting performances first with the resting pulse and then after

2.5 km skiing respectively with 50%, 70% and 100% pulse rate which is separately calculated for each

athlete according to karvonen formula.

Findings: Our findings show that while there was negative relation between maximum speed and body

fat there was a positive relation with lean body mass. It has been determined that low body fat percentage

and high lean body mass are effective at the athletes’ maximum speed and the pulse level with the

highest target shooting accuracy rate was at rest and 70% in the second level.

Results: Since the pulse of the athlete who comes to the shooting area cannot be reduced to a resting

level in a short time, focusing the 70% pulse zone may be beneficial in terms of shooting accuracy and

acceleration after the shot. The lowest results in target shooting accuracy were seen at 50% and 100%

loads.

Keywords: Athletes, performance, heart rate, lean body mass.