Hello, hoping for some reassurance to be honest, I’ve recently had to take 4 weeks off training due to an injury, after 4-5 months of fairly intense training on the bike (injury not related )
My RHR is now averaging low 60’s from a base of 48-50 when training, and HRV has tanked to around 30 from a previous average of 50+.
As I understand it these changes can be a sign of overtraining, but are they also attributable to zero training ?
Thanks for any insights.
When did you start recording RHR and HRV?
The problem is that if you start recording them during a period with a big load or a major health problem, your ‘normal values’ are skewed to those circumstances.
RHR could be easily explained in that case because during a prolonged overload period, RHR will be low. Low RHR combined with high HRV can be parasympathetic saturation.
The big question now is: How do you feel?
Do you feel rested and relaxed? If so, this condition could very well be your ‘normal’ one.
Or do you feel nervous by the lack of exercise, maybe even somewhat guilty because you’re missing a lot of planned training?
During the season my rhr is always 5-8 bpm lower than during the offseason, so your higher rhr looks normal too me. Keep in mind injury=inflamation and overall all other things putting your body into a stress mode.
Again, my HRV is around 80+ during the season but during a pause is at 60 or lower.
“As I understand it these changes can be a sign of overtraining, but are they also attributable to zero training ?”
It would be hard to judge overtraining by looking at rhr and hrv alone. For example for me overtraining looks more like sudden rise from my 80 base into 90+ territory. For sure after a 4 week pause your body is extremely rested and bored. Keep in mind that intense training for a long time is more like subtle balance on a verge of inflamation stress and fatigue so it would be not clever to treat your higher hrv and lower rhr as standard values for your body. Or in other words it is really hard to say if you were overtrained or not just by looking at your rhr and hrv. Your injury can be a hint here but not necessarily. From my perspective overtained body just gives up at some point not always during a workout or even in any way connected with your activity. Just at some point your body loses ability to heal all the sport induced inflammation and build more muscles and sacrifices the weakest part due to lack of healing reources. Probably it would be wise to ask your doc itf the injury could be due to fatigue etc.
PS. what works for me and gave me plenty of useful info on my body was implementing recovery weeks every 4th week. For me it was the best way to learn how actually fatigue feels bc it is really hard to spot it without proper resting and at the same time it is much easier to spot the changes of your hrv nad rhr during jsut a week of easier training (hrv drops a bit, rhr rises a bit)
Thanks for the reply, I’ve been recording RHR and HRV for 15 months now.
I don’t feel rested or relaxed to be honest, more annoyed and frustrated that after a lot of structured training I’m losing all the fitness benefits, and I have a few races and riding trips planned this year. Maybe I just need to accept the facts and concentrate on rehab
This makes a lot of sense, thanks for the detailed reply. I followed the Zwift Build me Up plan from January this year, plus some outside rides, which is a lot of training for me. Felt Ok and recovered well ( I thought) but also gave up alcohol this year which helped massively with recovery, so maybe just too much stress on the body too soon.
I had a stressful situation at work and I stopped riding for several months. Over that time my RHR went +10-15 bpm and HRV tanked -10-15ms. Once I got over that period and started regularly riding again the RHR and HRV returned. It’s hard to say if it was detraining or stress, but I feel like I started seeing improvements after getting back on the bike which was motivating and self-reinforcing.
Take it with a grain of salt, I’m not an experienced rider, just my experience as an out-of-shape desk jockey that likes riding.
Thanks, sounds a very similar situation.
Probably I just need to concentrate on getting my leg sorted and get out on the trails for the summer, not stress about losing fitness.
I don’t know what kind of injury you have or how hard it is on your body, but I recently had appendix surgery, and even after 4 weeks, my resting heart rate is still 8+ beats higher and my HRV is 20ms lower. So don’t underestimate how much your body needs to recover from an injury like that.
How do you measure resting HR?
For a long time, I thought it was first thing in the morning HR. On
Then people started wearing watches at night and getting a lower number
I recently read (and I think I agree) that a resting HR should be measured when you are are awake , sitting down and doing nothing for 5-10 min.
It won’t be as low as your sleeping HR but the source seemed to imply that making people feel good about a low HR was a way to sell wearables.
To add to what you’ve said, HRV should be taken in the morning, as long as possible after the previous day’s stresses, so you have the best view of “how have you recovered”; under the same conditions each time, so there’s a controllable condition.
For me the measurement taken by the watch (in the morning I think) it’s 5 to 7 bpm lower than resting but awake. But it’s individual so I’ll look for trends rather than numbers.
Hi, it was a trapped femoral nerve, off my feet for a week and still got a numb leg now but getting better with physio.
Hi, I wear a Garmin watch but take HR baseline from a period of rest during the day, lowest readings seem to be when I’ve been watching some YT or a film.
My daily average has been 10 ish BPM higher since the injury
Yes, HRV readings are overnight average according to Lord Garmin
Just for info and to wrap up a thread, I’ve had 2 weeks back easy training and RHR and HRV are back to normal levels. At least I’ve learned something from this, thanks again for all the replies and info
This is fine. For a number of reasons, I use night-time HRV. In fact, it’s proven to be more reliable and reflective of my state than morning HRV. Watch for trends over time and any rapid deviations. As Gerald indicated, there is a difference between nighttime and morning HRV. The latter better reflects recovery from the previous day of training, especially if it was later in the day or evening. If you tend to workout in the morning, or don’t do an intense workout in the evening, then nighttime trends work nicely.
ive noticed that when i’ve been training and loaded up, HRV drops and RHR increases.
On another platform, i’ve paired my Fenix 6 and whoop devices and noticed whoop calculates HRV from your whole sleep whereas garmin does it from midnight, so this provides a variation between 4-6 points of HRV.
I’ve also discovered that when using herbal sleeping tablets my HRV and recovery score improves providing i keep regular bedtimes due to getting more deep and rem sleep overall.
If i’ve had a 2-3 day block or one particular long/hard ride and take a herbal sleeptablet with 8+ hours, my HRV will peak around 40-43 however i will still feel fatigued and need an extra day recovery.
As a general rule of thumb if my HRV is high over several days and HRM is low, I’ve recovered well, if the opposite , i’m fatigued.
I’m still looking at this and looking how that my HRV & RHR maps to what the fitness curve looks like in my fitness page on .icu, since i connected whoop with .icu to tell me if it matches how i feel
HTH