Interesting

So the HRV thing continues to be interesting.

I have been using an app called Elite HRV, but from what I have seen they generally work in similar ways. You take a resting HR reading at a consistently similar time each day, preferably soon after waking up, and it develops a trend of normal HRV levels for you and then gives you a score each day. For my app the score is out of 10, but generally it is a relative score to say:

• you are okay to train
• you might want to take it easy
• you need to rest.

So far my readings have come out all green, good to go, but I have had a couple of yellow, take it easy, ones, such as yesterday morning. In fact this was the reading yesterday morning.

Given the training I had done on Sunday, it is probably fair to say I was beginning to over reach. In fact on Monday morning I was fairly shattered. Really, from that perspective the HRV reading was telling me what my body was saying anyway. But it was useful to have that independent confirmation of what my body was saying.

Most of what I have read says you don't need to over react to a single low reading, so accordingly I didn't freak out yesterday, I went training as I had planned, but I had the afternoon off. If I hadn't taken a HRV reading then I probably would have approached the day in the same was based on how I was feeling, but once again, it was good to have the confirmation.

This morning the reading was still low, but back in the green and so I trained as normal. Generally that has been how the readings have come out, sometimes a little low, but mostly green, which in itself I find interesting. What that has been telling me is that you can work pretty hard before your system starts to be compromised. You don't need to tiptoe around your body, turns out it can be pretty robust.

Anyway, this exploration of HRV continues to be interesting. I am a week or so into it now and so far I have found the information useful. It hasn't set my world on fire or significantly changed how I train, but I am a sucker for data and this is adding some data for my life that I am finding helpful. As such I have every intention of continuing to measure it.