Techniques for quantitatively measuring fatigue and recovery rates

[bclarkson]

Power meters are letting us measure our training stress and thus our fitness but I think we still do not have any clear way of measuring fatigue and ultimately recovery rate.

So…I wonder if you could use a daily or bi-daily ramp test as a proxy to measure recovery after a hard race (or a long hard ride) and thus get an actual measurement of the rate that you recover? For example, after a race (or event) you could count the number of days it takes to get your ramp test to yield a measurement that is within 90% of your last rested FTP measurement (supposedly done at the beginning of the current training block). I wouldn’t do it more than once a block (or macro cycle) and only time the measurements to be after a hard event when supposedly you have a recovery week scheduled anyway.

The idea being that with this information in hand you can better plan out the distribution of rest days, the length of your meso-cycle (3 vs 4 weeks), as well as how long to taper (if needed) for the next training block.

I would be interested in your opinion on the above as well as any other ideas you might have for measuring fatigue. Let’s start reducing the guesswork around the most important part of training!

[d_diston]

I use HRV to measure recovery - tracks reasonably well and can act as a performance predictor.

Anyone using HRV? (Heart Rate Variability)

There’s a fair amount of chatter about using hear rate variability (HRV), particularly to track fatigue. Does anyone have any experience with this? Do you find it useful? Any particular recommendations on getting started?

[bclarkson]

Is it enough to measure your HRV during the workout only? Or do you have to measure it all day long?

(I probably should read that entire thread first )

[onemanpeloton]

Just measure it first thing in the morning

[Supermurph19]

Doing ramp tests all the time is very taxing on the brain, you need to save as many of these efforts for when it counts. (IMO).

[joeyfrench]

I initially had my doubts but after using Whoop for the last month or so, I think it is pretty spot on in terms of measuring my recovery. Seems to line up with exactly how I’m feeling and is predictable and useful enough that I’ve begun moving my workouts around to account for my recovery numbers.