I am looking at HRV as a tool to hopefully provide some insight into the training loads and fatigue from training and life that lead to a triggering of my Tachycardia. i have it pretty well under control at the moment, but as I start to revert to my old ways and pushing the limits, I feel it might rear it’s ugly head again soon.
For those experienced with using an app like HRV4, Elite RV or Garmin Connect to measure HRV, I’d appreciate your input on how best to utilise the equipment I have already got, and what i could buy additionally, to get an effective and accurate measurement regime going without spending a fortune.
I have the following
Garmin 530 which can record Stress levels using a HRM strap
Samsung S10E which does not have a PPG sensor like other Samsung Galaxy phones
A Garmin HR strap with a Wahoo TICKR on it (long story but it works fine for measuring HR).
One option is to use one of the phone Apps with the HRM strap, but putting a HRM on first thing in the morning when i wake seems a fiddly way to do it and unlikely to be sustained.
Another is to try and use the S10E camera with the HRV4 app, if that works given the phone doesn’t have a PPG sensor. I can’t test this without buying the app, so I have dropped them a line to see if it would work.
I have considered buying an affordable small form factor wearable (if there is such a thing from say Fitbit or Garmin), but know very little about these nor whether they do a good job or not. If it did, it would seem a tidy way of capturing the data.
Are there other options that make sense to consider from your experience?
I have been measuring my HRV for the last 7 months every morning without fail. I was using my Garmin watch with a third party HRV app for the first 6 months which provided me some insight and baseline but I always doubted the accuracy - on occasion the readings could be quite erratic and the watch HR sensor is not great.
In the last month I purchased a Polar 10 HRM (known for its accuracy and also referenced as the preferred HRM to use by a few of the HRV apps) and it has been far more “stable”. I have been using Elite HRV connected via Bluetooth and it’s reports on each measurement if there were any artefacts etc that could of made the reading wrong - there have been no issues so far.
I thought moving from pressing a button to putting on a HRM etc every morning would be annoying but in reality it was all part of my routine anyway and so has not bothered me.
With your Garmin/Ticker HRM (assuming it broadcasts Bluetooth) and Elite HRV app you have a free solution you could start with today and see how you get on.
I use Garmin Fenix5, Elite HRV w/CorSense and HRV4 with optical (iPhone 12). Overall I find my Garmin accurately captures my Stress Level on a day-to-day basis. I do grab my HRV first thing in the morning (most mornings) with HRV4Training/optical sensor and then Elite/CorSense. I like the CorSense but it’s finicky when it’s really cold in my room. Between the two apps, I find HRV4 to more accurately align with my perceived level of readiness and Garmin Stress. It also reliably integrates with Apple Health to pull sleep data. I prefer HRV4Training so far and may just switch to that.
In my experience, Elite HRV has some features I like (tagging for one) but it is more sensitive to irregular heartbeats (does not recognize artifacts OR recognizes them and does not correct them). It also does not do a great job pulling in sleep data from AppleHealth (as recorded from my Fenix5).
That’s just my experience with those two apps and I have emailed customer support for both and have always gotten quick responses and support. I hope this helps.
I’ve been using HRV4Training with camera readings for a couple of years now getting seemingly good readings. About 6-7 weeks ago i got a Polar H10 and the readings are just on another level. I have compared to readings performed with the Kubios android app and they are now way more consistent.
Just started to use Kubios and I like it a lot. It provides more detailed measurements than HRV4Training. HRV4Training uses an assortment of subjective data to compile a HRV-index. Currently I’m using HRV4Training and Kubios simultaneously 'cause I feel they kinda complement each other.
I just downloaded EliteHRV and did my first measurement today. The reason I wanted to try EliteHRV is their “Guided Breathing” feature. The jury is still out on its usefulness but in other regards I find it quiet similar to Kubios.
HRV4Training stands out being a bit different from the other two. I’m probably gonna keep using HRV4Training in conjunction with one of the other options.
I decided to run with the HRV4 app and use it with the camera to start with. Did my first measurement and can’t say I am that keen on the burning of my finger, so i might just buy a Polar H10 and be done with it!
I got my H10 mid June, prior to that I used the camera. As you can see in the screenshot of my rMSSD readings, the earlier readings are considerably more variant than the later. Without having access to the raw data readings, my guess is that the algorithm has some trouble identifying the variations of blood flow in my finger tips correctly.
And yes, I’m totally stressed out from work and family issues, hence the alarmingly low values. I am trying to get back on track though.
The Polar H10 is a single lead ECG. The phone uses the lense to watch the color change in the skin during blood flow and interpret the pulse from processing the image. Same as the OH1, etc.
I wonder if trainerroad added support for calculating dfa alpha 1 if that would give a better way to see what target power should be used for endurance workouts
I think it might, but I don’t know that the research is strong enough for it to go into a mass market product.
Also, based on my issues with the Wahoo Tikr (it gave garbage results), this would require them to test and validate which HRMs produce good data for this purpose. This would likely add a measurable load on support.
I think this is a long, long way out if they every do it. What might happen sooner is for them to record HRV and put it in the .fit file so people can analyze it post workout. IMHO, this should be a high-ish priority for them as this also gives them data to analyze with their ML effort.
record what heart rate source is being used (be able to know what straps are being used by users and needed to see which give good data)
record hrv data
calculate dfa alpha 1. (On client has the advantage that this is lots of calculations so easier to do on the client. Doing it in the server allows better handling of artifacts in that its easier to tweak the algorithm)
analyze artifacts in the data (see if certain straps should just always be ignored for everyone and which usually are good but sim meetings produce bad data)
feed this into sky net to see if it shows useful data. (Are some people’s endurance rides to easy and some too hard? I’m assuming only a smaller subset of people use straps that give good data, can this sunset show correlations in other data to help with everyone or will only those with good data get their workouts optimized)
tweak people’s levels based on previous exercise alpha 1 levels
maybe more optimization of workouts by using current alpha 1 numbers to control wattage target instead of just historical data. (Workouts better targeted for how you feel at the time)
“Consequently, end-users, such as the general consumer, elite performers practitioners, researchers, and clinicians that purchase COTS devices with the intent of deploying strategies to augment certain health metrics based on derived insights, are severely restricted in their knowledge of device capabilities.”
