Image: Heartmath Institute
Heart rate variability (HRV) has gained the attention of everyone from weekend warriors to elite level athletes. Most look into HRV to evaluate their training in order to best optimize their recovery and overall “readiness” to train and compete. While HRV is certainly not a new concept, it has only recently become a staple of competitive programs to monitor athletic performance.
HRV is the time interval between a heartbeat – measured by the variant between beat-to-beat intervals. If, for example, your heart beats 60 times every minute it does not necessarily mean that there will be a one second interval between each beat. How sporadic the interval is between beats is in fact highly dependent on how stressed you are. As HRV reflects autonomic nervous system function and thus stress, it is frequently used in the athletic world to identify periods of optimal training, and to monitor recovery status. It has been suggested that monitoring HRV can help to identify recovery, determine if an athlete is overtraining, and lastly identify if an athlete is adaptive to training.
In short, reading the HRV score will yield a better understanding of how the athlete is functioning that given day. The more rested and recovered the athlete is the higher his or her HRV score will be. If the athlete is stressed or over trained, he or she will have a lower HRV score indicating that the sympathetic nervous system is working overtime. These scores take into account all forms of stress such as academics, sleep patterns, or physical stressors brought on by the training itself. The main idea behind collecting this information is to limit, or avoid, overtraining that could potentially lead to injury. We know that acute overreaching is often the time athletes are most at risk for injury, therefore modifying activity allows the coach or athlete to stay one step ahead.
There are multiple systems you can purchase to gather this information, but like most products, some are more reliable than others. Methods of gathering HRV range from wrist bands (WHOOP), wearing electrodes and chest strap (Omegawave), to an iPhone app that collects information using the camera and your index finger (HRV4Training). Other than reliability, it should be noted that maintaining strict compliance from athletes is of utmost importance to ensure good data.
Collecting HRV with athletes is a good way to see how they are responding to the stress in their life, however most subjective questionnaires can show much of the same information. Putting an objective number on stress levels can be beneficial, but finding a way to know, and better understand athletes should be the main goal, regardless of collection method. Whether you decide to buy Omegawave, or have the athletes fill out a daily questionnaire, the task remains the same. Communication and transparency between coaches and athletes should remain at the top of the list.
Takeaways:
- Collecting objective HRV is a good step in better understanding athlete physiology.
- Compliance is big part of collecting data. Questionable compliance = poor reliability.
- Communication between coach and athlete is of high importance, regardless of data collection method.
Phil Wagner is the Founder and CEO of Sparta Science. Sparta Science is on a mission of creating an Evidence Based Training system for athletes to become healthier and perform at a more sports specific level using the scrutiny of technology used in medicine with patients.
