DFA Alpha 1 HRV - Recovery Indicator?

I’ve learned to use overnight HRV as one of several indicators of when it comes to recovery, but a new one for me is DFA Alpha 1. I’ve used it for several rides, and today I saw something really interesting. The first few rides my typical “zone 2” power in the 200-210 range kept DFA A1 in the 1.0-1.2 range on average, where 230 would push it towards the zone 2 limit of .75. Letting off the gas a bit and riding like 180 watts would increase it to 1.2-1.4.

Well yesterday was really atypical and stressful, I had a big ride early in the morning, I worked from 8am-830pm, got home late, missed dinner and ate a bowl of cereal before I crashed in bed, slept terribly (and short) and had somewhat low HRV overnight, but decided to try to get a plan zone 2 ride in this morning anyway. Well the weird thing was that my DFA A1 this morning would barely stay around above .75 pushing 180-200 watts, where my HR vs power was looking normal. Going above 200 and I’d dip well below .75. I decided to pull the plug and go home after an hour of that.

First, does anyone notice that DFA A1 dips when you’re under-recovered / stressed? Do you also use this as a recovery indicator? It appears to have some real uses, but I can’t seem to find a whole lot of info online about using it in this way. Seems like it may potentially be a very underrated tool for us.

How did you feel (in words with more than one syllable)?

I’ve used it to determine the aerobic threshold by heart rate (around 125bpm for me) but I don’t bother with it on a daily basis.

I can usually see what you are seeing by HR/power now. On days when I’m feeling fresh I can push 10-20 more watts at 125bpm.

There tons of dfa alpha 1 info here:

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