I’m using the QS from Emfit as well. It’s hard finding direct correlations with training stress, other than simply “how I feel.” Still, it DOES make me take stock of the training load and consider when I should back off. Have been working up a statistical model of HRV correlations, and hope to have something together soon.
Here is a 180days view and 7 days view (recovery week).
I have annotated it and it makes sense over a longer period for me. Vacation always boosts HRV. You see nicely the increase of HRV over the last weeks where I feel that I can much better cope with the weekly training stress - allowing me to concentrate on quality and not purely quantity of training.
You see for lower training stress days I observe a good recovery over night with morning values higher than evening evening values (green arrows). For days with high training load I see morning HRV values not much higher than evening values or even below.
The individual values give less of an insight than the trends and the longer term averages.
Does anyone have any insight regarding the correlation between HRV and blood pressure? From my googling, high HRV is highly correlated to a healthy blood pressure.
Does anyone successfully use a Wahoo Tickr X with HRV4T? According to EliteHRV the Tickr is R-R (via BT) accurate so I assume the Tickr X is as well.
When I use it with HRV4T the HR is all over the place and HRV4T reports bad signal quality 90% of the time… I already changed the battery and the strap (not the sensor) but the problem still exists.
Would be great to know if the Tickr X should work in theory and my sensor is dying - sometimes i think so as I have to change the battery more often (but this maybe just subjective…)
Yes been using ithlete for 4 years with polar then wahoo tickr. Seems to accurately reflect my training loads, daily stress, illness. Few articles on it online & podcast on training peaks coachcast.
I researched hrv on Google scholar using peer review so much scientific evidence for it as good measure.
Taking hrv at same time of day (best first thing am) , in same position, with regular steady breathing & good heart rate monitor not watch seems to give vest results.
For cost of phone app & decent heart monitor (which most readers will already own). I would try it out.
It also think would be great to link trainer road tss & data gathering to hrv metric as this gives actual body measurements of current stress on body.
Ideal would be AI based on trainer road plans, tss & hrv taking daily measure & adjusting trainer road plan & calendar to suit.
Neil
AI is the next logical step.
I’m tempted to abandon the set plan structure (i.e., hard workouts on Tue/Thurs etc.) and simply complete the workouts according to their order in the plan and daily HRV (so if I’m recovered, a hard session will be done irrespective of schedule). The old calendar would have been perfect for this approach.
Would be interested in hearing if anyone else has taken this approach (I saw the recent paper detailing HRV and training schedules and this has influenced my thinking).
You’d be best contacting Marco @ HRV4T to ask him. He’s usually really quick to respond to this kind of question:
Thanks for the hint. I contacted him and he responded very fast, but does not have experience with the TickrX. I submitted a ticket with Wahoo Support - maybe they will shed some light on this - I’ll report back in case they do.
So this is my experience also. I’ve started to doubt my heart. I can’t get consistent readings with the Apple Watch breathe app (it occasionally just doesn’t record HRV), the HRV4Training camera reading method (I just can’t get a finger position that consistently reports optimal signal quality), and my Wahoo Tickr (granted, not the X) often reports poor signal quality and even if it reports optimal signal quality there are plenty of moments where my resting HR is suddenly at 164 or something nonsensical like that. I am pretty sure that is not correct. 
My question is this: do you get good readings with Elite HRV and your sensor?
If you need to buy a new HR strap I’d definitely recommend the Polar H10 (recommended to me by Marco).
I haven’t used EliteHRV for a while, but AFAIR my HR was at least stable - measurement quality was not reported if I recall correctly.
I’ve got a response from Wahoo Support saying that:
The sampling rate on every Tickr model does allow for RR tracking, but you will need to use an app with software capable of pulling that data.
Which is somewhat different than a post in the garmin forum stating that only the Tickr is R-R accurate and not the TickrX.
So for you owning the Tickr this should work (in theory). I’m currently looking on getting my hands on another Tickr(X) to see what happens.
Yes. I have been trying to do that mainly by giving myself an extra day or so to recover. Generally this year I have been following a low volume plans which allows me to add an extra day so of rides if personal time & HRV are ok. Useful as I also like to ride outside as well as on the turbo
I have noticed that an extra day of rest and an early night with no alcohol really pops my HRV back up and allows me to do that next hard workout.
So i’ve been doing HRV for the past week or 2, after getting my baseline it was definitely a lot better at not always sticking me in the yellow lol.
Helps me replace say, a hard cycling workout by a recovery swim as an example… i was getting tired of relying on my rhr which has been higher by 5 to 10 bpm since i started my training plan. Only if i take a 3-day rest does my rhr drop back to previous values i’d recorded last year.
So i usually will do a 1-min reading before bed and the morning readiness one (2-min) on ELITE HRV using my Tickr strap. I keep some salty water near my bed to get the ‘signal’ right away and it works great.
Also from what i understand it only really works well for RR while on bluetooth (as my Galaxy S8 has Ant+ so it could’ve been an option).
Elite HRV has all of those numbers
Just not colour coding for each
Yep.
I am currently doing a study of:
Welltory
HRV+
Elite HRV
HRV4Training
All using Wahoo Chest Strap.
I am not giving them any additional input other than heart rate to see how they all compare (for now) to establish a baseline.
I am also doing this with AutoSleep, but that uses the Apple Watch, which is not as accurate, but since I am already wearing it for my sleep assessments, I thought I would include it as well.
Are either of the 2 free?
Elite HRV is free; I believe you need to use a HR strap with it though:
HRV4T costs £9.99, but has the functionality to use the camera on your phone (this is supposed to work well if you’ve got a higher spec phone):
I’ve not used Elite HRV, so personally can’t compare the two. I’ve been impressed with HRV4T though.
For the first time since I started using HRV4T I’ve got a dilemma on which direction I should take my training this week.
For the last 5 days my HRV has been lower than usual; my normal values would be around 7.8 to 8.0, but for the last 5 days all readings have been between 7.2 to 7.4. Even during an illness I had last month my readings didn’t go as low as 7.2. I’ve not been ill or overly stressed, and my training load hasn’t been higher than normal. I did have my first race of the season about 9 days ago, but it was just a sprint duathlon, so I doubt that would have caused too much stress on the body. Just to add, my resting HR has been pretty consistent with my normal values. Maybe 2 bpm higher, but nothing major.
I’m consistent with when/how I take my readings and have been receiving “optimal” read quality each time, so I’m confident in the accuracy of the readings.
I’ve got a race in a few weeks time, so had a couple of tough sessions planned this week as part of my plan. I’m feeling a bit fatigued, but nothing too much out of the ordinary. If the readings from the app are to be trusted then my body is under more stress than usual, even if I’m feeling ok.
What would you guys do in this situation?
My action in this situation would be to check that I’m eating enough carbs and protein and getting enough sleep. As for workouts, I do ~60% rides. This usually gets me back at the proper fatigue level (adaptation inducing not pit digging) in a day or two.