I am curious to know more about stress caused HRV increases vs recovery-caused HRV increases. From where I live, during allergy season alone can cause a 10-20pt reduction in my HRV readings when the pollen scale rise to its highest levels yet I still feel fine physically from day to day and train normally. This could be the deal breaker between the two.
I have used the Ithlete at different times during the day (before bed and upon waking) and the numbers usually vary + or - 2pts. I’d suspect that the 2:30 measurement would be more accurate. You thinking about going with the Bioforce?
This relates to what I wrote earlier about differences between previous versions of the apps. From the start, Bioforce had the ability to flag significant relative increases in HRV as parasympathetic over training and would give an amber or red warning. In version 1 of ithlete this did not happen and the same data would have a green indicator as if everything was ok. Ithlete version 2 included this feature and so the information you quoted is no longer accurate (except the length of the measurement period).
I guess people struggle to determine what state of recovery they are in?
Athlete’s and coaches want a tangible test to remove doubt and or encourage them to train or take it easy?
The combination of these two facts make following the Heart rate v interesting for most.
What about all the non testable facts that guide the majority of my own training and also training others?
How you feel?
What you are sleeping is like?
Appetite?
Desire to train?
Thirst?
Digestion?
Does anyone rely on this as well or do you strictly want to see data and numbers?
And then what do you do when you get the numbers?
Works for me. Every time, one or more of the above are off for me…I am always in a poor state. It took me a long time to listen to it, especially with no coach.
All of those things do work. I have the Bioforce HRV. What I like about it is that if some of the things are off that you mentioned, it will show up in the numbers. If I don’t get good quality sleep or there is extra stress with family, my numbers will always be off. The other thing I like about bioforce vs. ithlete is that the bioforce program will also give a readiness scale, so you have an idea of exactly how hard you can push that day. Of course, things may change during the workout. I don’t think HRV is necessary for everyone, but I do think it is a good product to help people test their readiness. It should not supersede any of the things you mentioned, but should be used in conjunction with them.
I’ve never used the Bioforce unit, but I believe the software engine that Bioforce uses is the Ithlete’s with some minor tweaks. I can say that I have one athlete who has been using the Ithlete for almost six months, and he has missed a grand total of ONE single reading during that time. The Ithlete reading takes a minute, and it is so simple to use there is simply no reason not to do it daily.
I can’t comment on the effectiveness of the Bioforce unit, but I can say I currently have no desire to experiment with the Bioforce, as the data we’ve collected with the Ithlete has been highly informative. To be honest, it took me quite a few months to get the hang of what the data actually means.
What I can say is that when you get curious and start looking for trends, it can be tremendously helpful. i’m looking forward to doing a training log looking back on the season starting soon. Hopefully some people will find it interesting!
With your situtation of having a long distance coach to athlete relationship with some of your athletes, HRV is quite helpful in knowing how to adjust your training from what the numbers tell you. In every sport that I’ve trained for since high school, I’ve always had a long distance relationship with the coach and can recall many times of running into recovery problems/injuries due to not knowing when to back off. I look forward to seeing a training log with HRV ratings of athletes who use the Hi-Low system.
Interesting article. I still don’t understand how teams incorporate all the omegawavey items. So if a guy is tired some day, they just sit him out of practice because the omegawave says so? I would like a real use case on how anyone actually uses these devices. Are they intended to remove the overreached -> supercompensation pattern so that you always just train in a refreshed state?
Search out Mark McLaughlin. He has written some articles for elitefts.com and uses the omegawave. My understanding is that the omegawave lets you know what each athlete is ready for that day. For example, say you have a speed session and weights planned but the test says that their CNS is not ready but cardiac is fully ready. You may be better off doing another day of tempo and moving the speed and weights session to the next day.
I don’t think the idea is to remove overreaching but to make sure you do not pass that point and go to far. If you have a solid plan and there is supposed to be some overreaching, then you may continue with what session you have planned, since there will be a time for supercompensation later. The omegawave should be able to help you make sure that you do not create too deep of an overreaching hole to come out of. Joel Jamieson talks about something similar in his HRV book. Basically, you as the athlete/coach have to decide what to do with the numbers based on what your plan is. The point of the testing is to make sure that you do not go to the point of exhaustion/overtraining.
Eagles WR Arrelious Benn has been diagnosed with a torn left ACL, and is done for the season.
It’s the same ACL Benn tore in 2010. It’s a career-clouding injury, as the 2010 second-rounder has provided little, if any, impressive tape during his three-year career. Benn wasn’t competing for a starting job in Philadelphia, and was going to need an impressive preseason to even crack the 53-man roster. The chronically-injured wideout turns 25 next month.
So identifying large sudden (“significant relative”) increase in HRV as red meaning parasympathetic over training (or overreaching) what is meant by stress-caused HRV increases, whereas smaller increase being shown as green meaning recovery-caused HRV increases (well recovered by that point in time)??
So if both Ithlete and Bioforce are using same mechanisms to measure HRV scores (other than length of measurement) then the only differences are the way the measured data are stored and presented to the user?
Recently started using HRV myself and found it odd that I had season best with HRV score of 62 and then really bad day with 74. This made me think that maybe my 74 and many other higher scores in the 70s and above were due to parasympathetic overreaching… However, my HRV score went up in this deload week and been in the 80s past two days… Does anyone have any possible explanation of such contradiction?
Achieving season best with HR of 62 (compared to 74) is understandable. Your lower heart rate indicated relatively good physical status on that day. 74 indicated more tiredness.
Scores in the 70s (say 10-15 bpm higher than optium) indicate possible over tiredness - but not necessarily a bad thing since you need to train harder to get fitter. But you also need to recover, one of the purposes of the deload week.
Going up to the 80s during deload may just be a factor of very hard training that requires more recovery. Not all athletes can absorb as much work as others.
A possible approach is to start the deload week with at least 2 preferably 3 consecutive days of complete rest rather than just cutting volumes and intensity. And see what that days to your HR recovery.
Also remember that non sport factors such as poor sleep, work related tiredness/stress, slight virus illness all cause HR increases.
By the way. I remember in an earlier post you stated your endurance times were relatively poor (in your opinion). Your resrting heart rate is relatively high for endurance performance, so without knowing your full training history, I hazard a guess you have not got an optimum genetic inheritance of low HR.
Those numbers (62 and 74) were HRV (heart rate variability) scores, which are different from RHR (resting heart rate). My heart rate is in upper 60s to low 70 as measured with this chest strap.
For this deload, I actually did zero running and did just very light (would almost call it calisthenic) weights and swimming and biking, so this was a lot bigger of a cut than just cutting volume and intensity.
That`s my mistake ! Should have read it more closely. I can understand why your results appear a contradiction, as you can see i have never tried monitoring via HRV however I have found RHR to be pretty reliable in matching training levels /tiredness to HR.
This is total uneducated speculation on my part, but has there been any evidence of HRV having a time lag in results.