Maximise The Training Benefits

Hello all,

I hope everyone is healthy and fit.  This is a short blog/newsletter on how you can maximise your benefits from triathlon and open water swim training by adapting your plan with heart rate variation data.

I have already posted a blog (Keep a Diary, Paint a Picture) including how heart rate variation data forms part of a good health and fitness log.  This short blog has more simple information on how to interpret it to MAXIMISE THE TRAINING BENEFITS.

My aim here is to use case study examples to show you how to be better through heart rate variation (HRV) metrics.

What Are You Measuring

As athletes we are looking at HRV to guide us on all stress.  Generally speaking, stress is detrimental to performance.  Whilst training is physiological stress that we can monitor by frequency, intensity and duration of sessions to a degree, there are many other stressors.  For example, a few to many drinks, feeling under the weather or suffering with hay fever are common stressors.  The measure of HRV is technical and skilled and requires a sports physiologist or medical professional.  What the vas, lay, majority of athletes want is quick, simple analysis to help maximise the benefits from training.  

How to Measure Heart Rate Variation

1. Go to a laboratory
   

Up until recently measuring HRV was a laboratory only exercise.  The lab measurement would entail a participant being connected up to a machine with sensors.  The participant stay still and be trained to breath evenly in, and out for minimum of 15 minutes.  The HRV measurement, in essence, is the variation in time between R waves (heart beats).  There is more detailed information on the measuring protocol and in-depth interpretation of HRV in this study.

     2. Get a good HRV measuring app

As technology has advanced we can easily measure this HRV at home on your smart phone using an app.  I recommend using HRV4TRAINING which can be downloaded on iOS or Android for £10: www.hrv4t.com Every morning, first thing (before the toilet or a drink etc), place your finger over your phone camera, open HRV4TRAINING app and measure.  You can set up which subjective measurements you want to log alongside your data.  You can also sync to training peaks to sit with your training plan.

How to Maximise Your Training Using HRV

For interpretation of your HRV data as described below you need to go to your overview tab in www.hrv4training.com.  Then set the tags (under heart rate variability - top right) to show the amount of days (in the cases below it is 60 days) and also to 'detect trend'. The HRV for training app does all the analysis for you.  There are five trends that are detected from the data that we are watching for:

1. We are stable (grey)
2. We are coping well (green)
3. We are at risk of accumulated fatigue (yellow)
4. We are at risk of maladaptation (orange)
5. We have accumulated fatigue (red)

The trends are colour coordinated with a key above the chart.  Below is an example of data from an athlete (identity kept secret) who is generally coping well and currently stable.  He has had build ups of fatigue and days of maladaptaion in the past 2 months.  Using this data to adapt training has helped the athlete to confidently proceed with training when adapting well and hold back or rest when not adapting so well, thus maxiising the training benefits.  The latest data (to the right of the chart) is encouraging for the athlete to proceed as planed with his training.

Below is another case with an athlete who has recorded a decline in HRV data recently.  Whilst she has been copeing well over the past few weeks, the app suggests that training today would result in maladaptation.  This means that rest and recovery is needed before the next session.  The benefits of training today are minimised and the chances of accumulating fatigue are maximised.  It just so happens that the following day is her rest day.  Perhaps swapping these days around would enable her to maximise the benefits from training.

Conclusion 

Training smart is a broad task.  Whilst there are many subjective metrics we can record, HRV is great data to log alongside for a better interpretation of how our body will adapt to training.  Our goal should be to get the most out of every session, to be better at what we do.