During the early part of the pandemic, in June 2020, ithlete won a grant to try and determine whether or not changes in daily HRV could be used to detect the onset and subsequent severity of the illness. What we didn’t know about at the time we conducted the survey of ithlete users, was how Covid would affect an otherwise healthy athlete’s ability to train during the illness and subsequent recovery.
Let’s take another look.
We recommend you take your Heart Rate Variability (HRV) reading at the same time of day – just after waking up and before drinking tea / coffee or checking your emails and social media. But why does it matter what time of day you take an HRV reading, and why can’t you compare a reading taken in the morning with one taken after lunch or in the evening?
What is inflamm-aging? And what can you do to ensure you’re inflamm-aging well? A reseaarch summary of the origional paper and how tracking HRV relates.
There has also been a large amount of research into the relationship between HRV and stress. The most common and important source of stress to athletes is pre-competitive anxiety and it is not known to what extent this impairs their performance.
The second installment in our Why ithlete? series looks at the ultra short 1 min measurement. Why we chose it, how it was validated and is now best practice
Although undoubtedly effective in developing strength and fitness, CrossFit also has a reputation for overuse injuries. Can tracking HRV reduce this risk?
The third post in the series from Richard Beck, looking at the results of his study.
From a practical perspective, measuring your HRV at altitude and comparing to HRV at sea level can show how sensitive you are to the effects of altitude, and that if you are an elite level endurance athlete, you may be more sensitive than mere mortals! Here is the research.
When friends told me that data collection was the hardest part of a dissertation, I didn’t believe them. However, trying to get 20 rugby players to collect HRV data as soon as they woke up every morning was definitely challenging.
Most endurance athletes are familiar with the term ‘overreaching’. That’s when you do high volumes of intensified training to cause supercompensation. But what actually happens to your body and what measures can you use to identify when overreaching has gone too far and become unproductive?
This study followed one looking at changes in HRV during preseason training camp and was designed to assess HRV changes during the early part of the competitive season to see whether the same effects on different positions occurred to the same extent.
Athletes and their coaches are always looking for reliable, convenient ways to monitor how well their training is going and performance gains its producing. We know that morning HRV measures are affected by training programmes, but what should we look for to be effectively monitoring adaptation?
Masters student and Rugby Union player Richard Beck tells us about his dissertation using ithlete. Additional research into daily HRV responses to rugby training and matches is always welcome and Richard’s study will be a great addition.
What is really remarkable about this study is that those following HRV guided training time showed greater 5k performance improvement over their control group counterparts every time!
We know that you can use a number of different modes of exercise to improve strength and fitness. But what mechanisms each works by has not been completely understood and communicated, nor has whether these effects change with age.
AF affects the performance of the heart, especially amongst older, less healthy people. But it also affects a significant percentage of Masters athletes. A large study over a 20 year period shows an interesting correlation between Atrial Fibrillation (AF) and HRV. There are optimum values of HRV and resting heart rate, above and below which the chances of developing AF increase significantly.
Government guidelines in the UK suggest no more than 14 units per week, equivalent to a standard glass of wine or a pint of lower strength (4%) beer every day for maintaining health. But do these suggestions also apply to athletes in training?
Is HIIT a better use of your precious training time than longer sessions of continuous running? An important question for runners is ‘am I more likely to get injured with one type or the other?’
Doing a good job of managing your total load will reduce the likelihood of illness and injury significantly. This post follows our recent summary of the International Olympic Committee (IOC)’s consensus statement on loading in sport and focuses specifically on their practical recommendations.
A summary of the International Olympic Committee’s recent review of over 30 papers investigating the relationship between total load and illness/injury in athletes.
Prof Paul Laursen & Dr Phil Maffetone have consistently preached the message that elite level performance needn’t be at the cost of your long term health. Their recent opinion piece highlighting why is summarised here.
The Australian Institute of Sport monitored 33 international track and field athletes across 5 seasons. They found injury and illness were major factors for success.
HRV has been recognised as an index of stress and vulnerability to stress, so it’s no big surprise that researchers have been looking for possible relationships between higher HRV and a longer lifespan.
It is very important to take into account the trends reported by both the Week and Month Change indications, as these are the ones that will report an increasing and unsustainable imbalance between stress and recovery.
Despite a great deal of discussion about, and anecdotal evidence to support the benefits of a low carbohydrate high fat (LCHF) diet, there have been few studies examining the degree to which athletes’ metabolisms have been altered to take advantage of this dramatic change in fuel for exercise.
PhD candidate Angela Spontelli Gisselman PT, DPT, OCS details the who, what and why of her own recent research in to overuse injuries and the ANS.
In our latest research summary, we take a look at one of the papers we reviewed carefully when designing ithlete back in 2009
Following on from our recent research summary, we take a closer look at adrenal fatigue and how it affects your training and performance
Our latest research summary focuses on two studies from Yann Le Meur who sheds some light on how and when parasympathetic overreaching occurs.
Summarising a very interesting piece of research looking at how work affects individuals in both psychological and physiological respects.
Summarising a very interesting piece of research looking at predicting team sports performance using heart rate variability (HRV).
Using the Framingham data this paper focuses on heart rate variability (HRV) and resting heart rate as predictors of cardiovascular disease, type-2 diabetes, and the so-called metabolic syndrome that also includes obesity and blood fat levels.
Our latest research summary takes a look at a case study of heart rate variability (HRV) in two elite triathletes, one successful, one overtrained