Is resting HR the best way to tell if fully recovered and to proceed with the day of training, or if too high, to either go very easy or take day off?
thanks
Resting HR should be one but not the only source for determining if you need rest. Life stress, hrv, previous training load, temperature, long term sleep quality, and more should play a role. Mostly going by good ole fashion gut feeling is still the best way to go. You know your body better than numbers on a screen, but you can still use data as a guide.
I track it, but donāt often use it in daily decision making. Although, if it stays elevated 3 or 4 bpm above normal for a few days, Iāll start asking myself some questions such as am I sleeping well, getting sick, etc. For me, itās most useful as an early indicator of illness.
I go by feel. If Iām on the trainer and it seems too hard pre-warm up, then I will check my heart rate. Never really checked my resting heart rate on a regular basis. Iām old with years of riding. I kinda know whatās up with the body.
I donāt use it.
Iād say I go by how I feel but that makes it sound like I have a choice - I just refuse to start training if Iām feeling that crappy.
I do read Garmin readiness to train and check it against my feeling, and which factors are green/red, but ultimately itās down to if I want to train. Except with illness, then Iād follow the metrics telling me to rest over my feelings.
I got a Garmin watch about 10 months ago to monitor fitness metrics like resting HR, HR variability, sleep score, etc. I havenāt found much value or use for the info. If anything, the only thing is does is roughly correlate with what I feel and already know.
Mine doesnāt move around too much day to day unless Iāve done a really huge effort. A better indicator for me is what my HR is doing at the beginning of a ride/workout. If itās suppressed and itās not jumping up properly during the workout, that can be a sign that itās not going to be a good day. Sometimes it will come around, sometimes not and Iāll pull the plug.
No, like others have said go by feel. There are so many factors impacting HR and depending on age, there are so many factors involved in HR/recovery. As long as my legs are good, Iām good but my mind is the most important. I find if I need to recover more, I donāt have the motivation to rise for 3 hours
Not really. The two most significant factors are:
- How long and how well did I sleep?
- What does my life stress look like at the moment?
I donāt need resting heart rate for that. Having sleep tracking is very useful, although I donāt need to know the exact value to the minutes. Below 6ā6:30 hours, between 6:30ā7:15 hours and >7:15 hours is what I found most relevant to me.
I donāt find it particularly useful. I am usually very motivated to train so if I donāt feel like training thereās a good reason. Sometimes I try the warmup and bail if that feels unusually difficult.
I agree
Otherwise, i use it for coming off being sick. Eg when i had covid, it stayed way high for a couple weeks. Didnt go hard until it got back to normal
Iāve had some of my all time best performances when my resting HR was elevated.
Iāve had it low and feel like garbage.
I just use feel. If I feel great, do the hard stuff, if I feel crap, donāt.
YMMV
Like most, I track it, but I donāt make any day-by-day decision by it.
For me most important inputs are:
- how good and long did I sleep last 3-5 nights . 1 night of bad sleep usually donāt make a difference and also I think it is a good thing to get use to for races to ride after shorter sleep because usually night before a race I donāt sleep great due to early start, travelling etc.
- How I am feeling last few days, am I tired at the end of build phase or I generally feelling ok
No, I just go by how I feel after a warmup. I would almost never just not train, more like if Iām not feeling it Iāll keep it easy rather than do the intervals I had planned. Usually happens on a Tuesday after a hard weekend of training. Almost happened this morning 
I would agree with most of the above comments.
I have a Garmin watch that is meant to track everything but I would say itās more of a numerical confirmation of how Iām feeling.
Iāve been tired and had great training sessions, and Iāve felt great and performed worse than expected.
So Iād agree with the going by feel advice, but thatās more like a āgo and do a warm up , and maybe the first interval, and see how you feelā rather than a pre-workout feel.
same as many above. Been racing endurance sports for 40+ years; after the first 35 or so, and multiple injuries and surgeries, I finally learned to just ālistenā to my body. If the warmup and opener feel bad, I might dial down the intensity 5-10% and try the first interval. If thatās hard, I delete the whole workout and put in a recovery workout