Been using the new Garmin HRV features, trying to understand the guidance. For some reason Garmin puts a lot of weight on the 7-Day average as opposed to highlighting last night’s number. I definitely understand the purpose of looking at an average but from a day-to-day training perspective shouldn’t last night’s number be the most important?
Case in point, I rode a hilly century last week Thursday. Tough ride for sure and my HRV values were in the toilet for the next few days. Got some good rest on Saturday and Sunday’s overnight HRV was 50 which is nearly my best of 54. Additionally, body battery number was near 100%.
Garmin still shows that I am fatigued and straining because my 7 day average is 40. I am pretty sure that last night’s number should really guide my training for today, not a 7-Day average that was very much impacted by a big event.
if you want a deeper dive into the why’s and why not’s of HRV take a look at HRV4Traiuning. They have a blog and FAQ that has a great deal of info on the why you should look at trends more than at acute changes. The Garmin app is improving but I am still more inclined to use the HRV4Training app or even another quality option Kubios HRV app on my pone. It does give some very good insights into how much stress you can take and when you might be in need of a bit of easy training or rest.
Ty - unfortunately the HRV4T app doesnt work with my phone camera - and im not interested in a strap - (i’ll check if the new fenix firmware supports broadcasting hrv)
I was more referring to a good source of info rather than utilizing the app. At this point there are few products that HRV4Training have acknowledged will work with the app. The problem most likely is that Fenix does not send out the data in the format that HRV4Training can use. HRV4Training has just implemented the ability to enter the morning reading from any device into their software. So all you need to enter is the numbers you see and it will then use them as if they were calculated by their algorithms. see this blog post: Manual Input in HRV4Training
it explains things I think.
