Heart rate is the most common index to directly monitor the level of physical stress by comparing the subject's heart rate with an appropriate "target heart rate" during exercise. However, heart rate only reveals the cardiac rhythm of the complex cardiovascular changes that take place during exercise. It is essential to get the dynamic response of the heart to exercise with various indices instead of only one single measurement. Based on the rest-workload alternating pattern, this paper screens the sensitive indices of exercise load from electrocardiogram (ECG) rhythm and waveform, including 4 time domain indices and 4 frequency domain indices of heart rate variability (HRV), 3 indices of waveform similarity and 2 indices of high frequency noise. In conclusion, RR interval (heart rate) is a reliable index for the realtime monitoring of exercise intensity, which has strong linear correlation with load intensity. The ECG waveform similarity and HRV indices are useful for the evaluation of exercise load.
