How to individualize your workouts with HRV Tracking.
Your training is only as good as your recovery. Your workouts create a stress on your body, and the recovery period is when you grow stronger. In order to keep up with the training demands you’re exposing your body to, it will adapt by improving it's capacity to deal with that stress. So if you’re lifting heavy weights, for example, you’ll adapt by gaining strength. If you’re exposing your body to long running sessions, you’ll adapt by gaining cardiovascular endurance, and perhaps losing some muscle that is hard for you body to support during long cardio sessions. But when you expose your body to more stress than it is able to recover from, your body begins to break down and you become weaker. Balancing your training stress with recovery is the key to optimizing your performance and keeping you in the game for the long haul.
These types of stress, that trigger a positive adaptation, are called hormetic stressors. The adaptation that occurs after being exposed to hormetic stressors is what makes you healthier. The stressor throws you out of balance, and your body compensates by working to bring things back into balance. In fact, this is what health is; your ability to maintain balance. But when you are exposed to more stress than you’re able to recover from, things become imbalanced, and not only your athletic performance suffers, but your health suffers, too.
Hormetic stressors are a good thing. You need them! But you need them in the right amounts. Too much stress leads to degradation (breaking down), while too little stress leads to atrophy (wasting away). Surely, you’ve heard the saying, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”. That’s definitely the case here, but only to a certain point. As with just about everything, balance is key.
The total amount of stress you're exposed to is called your allostatic load. By definition, allostatic load is, “the wear and tear on the body that accumulates as an individual is exposed to repeated or chronic stress.” Your training is only one part of the stress you’re exposed to, and your ability to recover from that training depends not only on how long or hard your training session was, but on how many other forms of stress you’re exposed to, as well. For example, lack of sleep is a big stressor. If you’re working late and aren’t getting enough sleep, you’re probably going to find that your workouts are suffering, because you haven’t been able to recover well. In this case, you’d be much better served to scale those workouts back, focusing more on active recovery work, until your body regains balance. By continuing to beat yourself up in the gym when your body isn’t able to stay on top of recovery, you’re throwing that delicate balance out of whack. You’ll end up injured, sick, and tired, at best. Oh, and you’ll also trigger fat storage! Yes, too much training can actually cause you to store fat, rather than burn it
To make the most of your training, it’s important to know where you are on your recovery scale. The best way to track this is by testing your heart rate variability every morning. You see, your heart rate is the number of times your heart beats every minute. But during that minute, your heart rate isn’t steady, like a metronome. The time between every heart beat varies, as it adapts to what’s going on in your body. For example, when you inhale, your heart rate speeds up, and as you exhale, it slows down. It is always fluctuating. However, when you’re overstressed, your heart can’t adapt well, and your heart rate variability (which indicates how much the time between each heart beat varies) will decrease. A low variability tells you that your body is not well recovered, your body is stressed, and you need to focus on improving your recovery rather than going for a personal best in the gym that day. In fact, when your heart rate variability (HRV) is low, you’ll find that you won’t perform well in the gym, no matter how good you were feeling when you walked in the gym. On the other hand, if your HRV that day is on the higher end, your body is ready to go and it’s a great day to go hard during your workout!
To keep track of your HRV, you’ll need to download some sort of app for tracking it. Remember, just tracking your pulse is different… you need something that advertises that it tracks your heart rate variability. I use HRV4 Training. It’s a $10 app, but many of the others I found require a monthly membership fee, and I’d rather pay the one time fee and be done! I also like that I can use my MyZone heart rate strap with the app or can skip the strap altogether and just use my finger over my phone’s camera.
Every morning, for 4-5 days, you’ll need to take a HRV measurement as soon as you wake up. It’s super important that you take it in the same context every day- before being active, and before having your coffee. After 4-5 days of taking your measurement, your HRV baseline will be established. From then on, you’ll be able to use your app to determine if you need to scale back on your workouts, because your HRV is low, or if it’s a good day to go hard in the gym, because your HRV is normal to high. The HRV4 Training app also allows you to enter in data, such as how intense your workout was the previous day, the amount of sleep you got, your alcohol intake, etc, so you can begin to learn what factors hinder your recovery ability.
On days your HRV is good, proceed with the prescribed Octane workout. On days your HRV is low, use your MyZone monitor and watch your training zone- be sure you don’t go above 75% at any time during the workout. This means you may need to scale back on the weights, slow down, or increase rest times to stay in that zone. This isn’t slacking! Remember that it isn’t beneficial for you to push hard and force yourself to earn more MEPs when your HRV is low. The stress overload will actually trigger muscle wasting and fat storage, (not to mention an increased risk of injury) which is probably not what you’re after. Remember, though, that movement heals. A low HRV doesn’t mean that you should be sedentary. Getting in some low intensity movement will increase your circulation and stimulate your nervous system, which will help you recover more efficiently than just sitting still.
Make the most of your workouts and your recovery! Track your HRV and use your MyZone strap to be sure you’re giving your body the activity it needs every day to optimize your fitness and your health!
