While your heart rate tells you how often your heart beats within a minute, Heart Rate Variability (HRV) measures variations in time between consecutive heartbeats.
HRV is controlled by your autonomic nervous system (or “ANS”). Your ANS is responsible for regulating involuntary body functions, such as your heart rate, body temperature, respiratory rate, blood pressure, and so much more. It also regulates your body’s sympathetic nervous system (also known as the fight-or-flight system), which signals to your heart to speed up, and your parasympathetic nervous system which controls your relaxation response.
As your brain processes information and reacts to stimuli, it sends signals to the rest of your body through the ANS to either stimulate or calm specific bodily functions. When your system is in fight-or-flight mode, the variability or difference between heartbeats is minimal, and when it is relaxed, the variability is significant.
So, what impacts HRV the most?
- Physiological conditions like gender, age, genetic makeup, the amount of sleep, and the quality of sleep you’re getting.
- Lifestyle choices such as diet, physical activity, mental and emotional stress, alcohol consumption, smoking habits, quality of sleep and sleeping conditions, medications, and more.
- Pre-existing conditions such as:
- Diabetes
- Heart diseases
- Lung diseases
- Renal diseases
- Anxiety disorders, panic attacks, and other psychiatric disorders
Environmental & external factors such as being in extreme weather conditions (hot and cold), noisy environments, high crime rate areas where a person needs to be more alert or may perceive themselves to be under threat, and more.
How does HRV affect your workouts?
When you undergo a training session, you are purposefully stimulating your body in a stressful way to shock its state of homeostasis. After the immediate fatigue, your body begins to recover so that it can deal with a larger training load next time. As your systems rebuild themselves, they make themselves stronger than before the training occurred.
Originally, HRV was measured in elite track athletes and in space program cadets. Today, HRV tracking is easily accessible to anyone with a smartphone. With this information, you can make better-informed decisions as to your training based on how your body is dealing with recovery and life's stressors.
HRV should be measured daily in order to indicate whether or not your body is ready to train. You are able to train harder and enjoy it more, as long as your body is in an unstressed state. This can also prevent overuse injuries.
How can you track your HRV?
You can track your HRV with many types of wearable devices including the Apple Watch, Whoop Band, FitBit, and NordicTrack.
The higher the variability, the better — it indicates that your body is in a well-recovered calm state. Persistent low values of HRV can indicate chronic stress. Try to measure your HRV at the same time of day in order to see meaningful results. HRV daily readings should be compared to your individual baseline in order to indicate significant changes based on temporary imbalances.
You can help your body actively recover by wearing STAMINAPRO Patches. Get better workouts in, and help your body fight inflammation before, during, and after your workout.
Faster Recovery. Better Performance.
