"This Is the Best Recovery Indicator" - Exercise Physiologist (and why HRV is a sham)

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Gosh, at my age (71) I'm just happy that I can sustain a run for two hours. My resting HR can drop to 46 bpm now. Getting my HR up beyond 140 is difficult. On one run my Garmin congratulated me when I hit 170bpm. That hasn't happened again since. Thanks for sharing all that skinny!

Watched this on 1.5x and it felt like normal speed.

Since I started working out a year ago my HRV has improved, or at least shifted to higher, while I can also tell there is a correlation between stress, poor sleep and training with my HRV. So there is definitely something to it.

Stay gold Rhonda.

Great interview - I love how you dont interrupt like Peter Attia!

Love that you see and seize the opportunity to have someone explain more (like with the zones) it's great interviewing. You deliver as a subject matter expert in other videos, and when you interview you let others speak and ask good questions. Not everyone does both well.

A friend once advised that his approach to recovery was to stop whatever activity (happened to be running) entirely until he felt like doing it again. As opposed to having a rigid schedule of rest days. Meaning the body knows when it’s time to get going again. Forget the schedule and listen to your body.

5k in zone 5 at VO2max is probably for the Pro's and very serious runners out there. I can't imagine a recreational amateur runner doing an entire 5k in zone 5.

Interesting and well presented. Thanks!

A fine line we walk.😊 Cheers

Amen to the HRV thing. Ive seen correlation with actual feeling ant fitness and recovery, or lack thereof during times of stress and whatnot. On the flipside its also been way off from the ground truth of my body. Not to mention if you eat later in the evening and its measuring during sleep itll be off from other times. I find it fun to look at but have found the resting HR seems to be a better indicator for myslef or trining and fatigue or illness

Good feedback on HRV. Thank you.

Clickbait title. The claim that HRV is a sham is grotesque. Garmin and other devices provides HRV numbers at night only precisely to avoid the operational issues he is referring to (he doesn't seem to be aware of it). Correlation between HRV and sleep quality in particular is astonishingly high.

As a teacher, I recognize the benefits of adequate recovery. During the school year, I am at the gym before 5 am to do an hour workout to make sure I still get to work on time. Over time, I feel my body break down from not getting as much sleep as I would like. During the summer, I am able to get much more sleep and spend more time doing recovery work, and I feel a significant difference.

I have been using wrist based metric devices for several years to observe what happens when I do different activities for variable time periods. In regards to HRV I have observed that long term efforts (day after day after day, and for several hours on those days) will drive down my HRV. I will also subjectively feel fatigued all thru that time. A prolonged period of rest from those activities will result in higher HRV. When I do shorter (1 hour a day) activities even every day I find that my HRV can be maintained at a higher level for a longer period of time. Certain activities drive down my HRV over others. Weightlifting and HIIT will drive it down. So I have learned that the time honored principal of listening to my body by how I feel and using the hard day, easy day approach works. So when my wrist based device konks out I will probably just go back to wearing a regular watch and do what I always did an probably improve my mental health by doing so.

My Garmin watch tracks HRV overnight, it is used as a tool to track my sleep habits and show how I'm recovering while training by getting a good night's sleep, if I sleep poorly or don't get enough on consecutive nights it drops and my recovery time takes longer, so it's usefulness for me is making sure i keep it high by taking my sleep seriously.

i do 2 days per week strong workout/weights in a gym and 3 times per week relaxing trainings like yoga/pilates/stretching and 1 day per week padel they compliment each other perfectly

That is so nice to hear about HRV. I was concerned that mine was low, though i have low max HR and get plenty of cardio. Thank you for sussing this out, Rhonda!

He's got problems with his definition of HRV. Like seemed to miss the importance of RR interval timing and stress. Seems to miss the fact that all over the EU and AUS they use HRV for a recovery metric, and seem to be doing pretty well with it. HRV has with out a doubt, and the Fins have all the data, can determine the effect of workload and appropriate recovery period.