I’ve linked, further below, to a piece of content from Whoop that gives their take on HRV. It’s quite a nice athlete-focussed overview that’s straightforward to read. It covers these broad topics and more: What it is, what causes it, how it’s measured, and why it’s an indicator of fitness What’s a normal HRV for…
As Rotterdam’s ITU Final finishes the season for the Age Grouper triathletes, I await the tales of potential woe from the bike course. The pro course on Saturday, which I imagine was a similar route to the AG route, looked technically demanding in the wet as I watched it live on the BBC. Of course it’s great to…
Oura Ring Review – A DETAILED look at one of the best sleep trackers
A new version of KUBIOS HRV software has just been announced. There is a well-featured free version and a premium version. I would class KUBIOS as ‘advanced’ HRV software. A bit too advanced fro my needs although I did use the previous version a little. 1) Kubios HRV Premium, which is our heart rate variability…
The Foundations of Heart Rate Variability course enrolment is closing in March. There’s a discount code if you want to sign up to it (Coupon code ‘TFK’). This could be an interesting course if you’ve ever wanted to take your use of HRV to the next level. https://hrvcourse.com/learn-more As you may be aware, the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS)…
Your early morning training readiness check with an HRV tool like ithlete just got a whole lot more interesting for analysis. With a paid-for ithlete pro account (trial available) you can link to Garmin Connect. ithlete pulls out your in-exercise HRV data. More info from ithlete: <here> Although I’ve not had a look and play…
I’ve often wondered what ‘normal’ HRV was. Am I normal? Am I average? I like to think I am special. No-one else does 🙁 Anyway below is an interesting article which might help you put YOUR OWN HRV score into some perspective. The original is here: > http://www.elitehrv.com/normal-heart-rate-variability-age-gender/. When I last looked Elite HRV was…
This EMFIT Review looks specifically at the QS EMFIT version for overnight sleep tracking EMFIT have 3 essentially-identical products to provide sleep analysis; one each for athletes, the elderly and children prone to night seizures. EMFIT QS is the variant for athletes and ‘regular’ people. On paper the EMFIT QS looks like the dream-product for us athletes, filling…
2016 should be an interesting year for the adoption of HRV. Many of you are probably already familiar with some of the advanced HR analyses that can be performed with HRV. Hopefully some of you have benefitted from these and related features. I have mentioned and discussed HRV for well over two years (others for much…
If you take waking HRV readings on a simple app then you should be in a better place at understanding where you stand today in terms of your readiness to train. We’ve found it’s not so difficult to combine a bit of common sense with a bit of HRV-based maths to equal a bit more effective training by…
I started off a couple of years ago with the intention to record ‘every heartbeat’ that I do in exercise. Not because I like collecting things but rather to get a more holistic view of the Training Load (TL) of my triathlon efforts. With a better view of my training load I could, for example,…
An interesting app from Marco Altini. HRV measurement by using the camera on your iPhone (not Android). Some models (iPhone 5 or 6) can take HRV-accurate readings from your finger suing the phone’s camera effectively as a heart rate monitor. Here are some more links if you want to find out more. Click on the…
A significant update yesterday was announced to the Elite HRV app which remains free to use on ANDROID and iOS. Full details are available on the Google Playstore. There are many notable changes from earlier versions. Immediately of note to me was that the developers appear to have fixed Bluetooth compatibility issues with older, apparently…
A nice (free) app on the Garmin IQ store/ Works on the 920XT and other new models. Based on a quick morning reading with an aid to guide your breathing. Still more work to be done but a great start and potentially one of the most useful Garmin IQ Apps. Get your firmware on your…
We’ve just heard that the new ithlete app has been released/ ithlete pro. Presumably still based on the same underlying HRV engine from HRV Fit Ltd. The following video tells you a bit more about it. Having had a quick glance; the feature that stands out is the ability to start to discern the causes…
You have a Garmin 920XT or maybe you’ve seen my review of the Garmin 920XT and want one. You are aware of all the clever stats in the 920XT and yet you ‘only’ have a low- to mid-end turbo trainer/powermeter that won’t send data to your 920XT. You realise that this means that you may…
This product is now discontinued. It still works though. See comments at the end. This is an overview of some of the more interesting functionality you can find in FIRSTBEAT ATHLETE software. Polar and Suunto users can get some additional insights into their training over an above their watch-vendor’s standard software offerings. Garmin users too will…
The warmup readiness check is displayed 12 minutes (on the 920XT) into an exercise. Usually you will still be warming up then. The readiness check will display a message something like “Fair”, “Good”, “Excellent” indicating how the watch thinks your readiness for the session might be. FIRSTBEAT write this recovery algorithm. They use Excess Post-Exercise…
This morning, when faced with the decision of “Should I train? or not” I have several bits of kit that tell me different things. Being a grown-up I don’t listen to them slavishly but I DO take into account the information I am being presented with. Here are some thoughts: 1. After yesterday’s session my…
I’d like help to compile a useful list of triathlon apps, other than the ‘main’ ones like Garmin’s or Strava. So, for example, I’d be interested in a tyre circumference calculator based on tyre size. Here is one to work out Heart Rate Training Zones based on LTHR: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.app2droid.hrzc.base&hl=en Here’s James Driscoll’s pace calculator: http://www.dialsolutions.com/run/…
