Triathlon Training - Listen to Your Heart (HRV)

Arend Pryor
Sep 6, 2017
2 min read

It was on the Ben Greenfield podcast with Kyle Kingsbury that I first heard about the benefits of measuring heart rate variability (aka HRV).

Before I jump into my experiences, here's a great summary of HRV and what it is, taken from www.elitehrv.com:

Definition:

Basic Heart Rate Variability (HRV) is the change in time between successive heartbeats (also called inter-beat intervals, R-R intervals, N-N intervals, etc.).

Unlike Heart Rate (HR) that averages the number of heart beats per minute, HRV looks much closer at the small fluctuations of the heart that occur in response to internal and external events.

HRV is a direct link to your Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) and can therefore be used to gain insights into your nervous system, stress and recovery activity.

Why I Use it:

Ok, so why should you care about measuring HRV? For me, I like having the ability to measure just how much my body has recovered from the previous day's exercise and whether or not I have the green light to push it during my workout for that day.

I find that when I train hard for extended periods of time, I have a tendency to get sick, so one of my hopes/goals in using it is to help me avoid overtraining and taking it easy when needed.

Device I Use:

After a little bit of research, I decided on the Polar H7. It got good reviews, works with my Android S7 and lower cost than some of the other devices I found. Got mine on eBay (new) for $50.

App I Use:

Polar has an app you can use, but I wasn't a fan of the interface. After looking around, I found the "Elite HRV" app and haven't looked back. Great layout, things are easy to find and I can track things like, previous day's exercise, sleep quality and more. Plus, it's free.

Additional Resources:

If I didn't post links to additional resources and videos I'd feel like I was missing something, so here's a few to check out if you wanna dig in and get more info.

Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast on HRV: If you haven't heard his podcast, I highly recommend it. Ben, what the heck is up with your super cheesy intro?