Hey guys,
I’ve been gathering my HRV data for the last 6 or so months (Polar H10 via HRV4Training). I’ve recently (starting in March) bumped up my training volume from average of about 8hrs per week to now probably 11 on average (peaking at 13 thus far), on my way to building my volume in the offseason into 2023.
So I’ve been looking more toward long term trends in HRV relative to baseline, and I’ve noticed something that doesn’t track with the FAQ and common misconceptions. Specifically, my HRV baseline will generally track in the normal range when I’m training my “normal” training week, 10-13 hours, 2 hard sessions, 2 long sessions, 2 recovery/technique/neuromuscular sessions.
It’s when I go to take planned recovery that my baseline falls below normal. It’s almost like my HRV data is telling me I’m better off not taking a recovery week. See below graph, a standard from HRV4Training Pro:
You can see there’s two times I’m “maladapted to training”. The first is near the end of March. This is after 3 weeks of my new normal… all throughout the actual block, HRV baseline is normal. It’s not till I took some structured time off that my baseline dove. (This also coincided with the advent of allergy season in San Diego, so the deload coincided with those allergies and about ten days of reduced volume anyway). So the dip there might make some sense given stress caused by the onset of those allergies.
The next dip starts, again, several days after a planned deload. April’s training went very well, nice ramp rate and then recovery and HRV baseline, again, below normal. “Maladaption to training” happening well after the actual training has backed off.
And now again, I’m taking a few days of easy before a racing block here, and my daily HRV has been below my baseline value for two days in a row. Not after Monday where I did a 20-min MMP test, but after Tuesday’s recovery ride, Wednesday day off, Thursday 90 minutes with a few openers of less than 30s… HRV below baseline and trending lower.
Physically, I feel fine. It’s possible there are stress confounding factors this week, but the April dip had no such confounding factors. I took three days off the bike, then a got back into my training.
So, the oddity here is that it’s almost like my body is in homeostasis when I’m training “normally”, even ramping as I was in March and April, it responds well until I shut things down.
My thoughts here are a couple:
(1) Perhaps the subsequent maladaption to training after planned recovery is time-late, or it is indicative that I’m not taking enough rest during my recovery weeks.
(2) This is just how the model works because it is a rolling baseline average? But even then, the acute, daily HRV trends show that when I take recovery days, my HRV ends up below baseline, and it returns to normal when I am training.
Perhaps I need to take a baseline during my offseason when I don’t train at all… I’ve not done that, but that’s two weeks out of the year, so it would seem less valuable to know what that looks like anyway.
Anyway, interested here if anyone has similar experiences, or if anyone has insights here. I’m admittedly relatively new to HRV, but looking at my trends in HRV4TPro today bounced off my training and subjective log, this was somewhat eye opening, and maybe, potentially, actionable in my planning and training execution.
Any thoughts? @marco_alt - free advice?
I opened my 30 day free trial of the coaching account on Pro today after going back through some of the blog articles, and the dashboard and overall presentation of the data on Pro is great. I will be subscribing and using it for my athletes who track HRV.
(This also has me seriously considering an Oura for my upcoming birthday… not for the HRV, but more for the combined sleep and not having to measure every morning… recognize that there will be a new baseline required from changing over…)
I also plan on trying the test Marco wrote about in his most recent blog, one suggested by Dr. Seiler for testing HRV before and after long, “polarized” zone 1 sessions to see if they were easy enough. That seems like an interesting test to run prior to or in your prep and early base seasons.