Heart Rate Variability Training

I just watched this video about Heart Rate Variability (HRV) training. I’m not sure I completely understand the concept yet, but it is interesting.

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The whoop strap ends up being $360 USD per year…

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Whoop whoop icp entered the chat

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https://youtu.be/bxAGHqsWTVk NSFW

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Read a book about periodization.
Friel makes a good one. “The training Bible”

Save you whatever that whoop BS costs.

HR monitors are valuable if you know how to use them and what to look for.

I’ve read Friel’s book, there’s a ton of great info in it. It was the reason why I bought a power meter. I don’t think I’ll be buying a whoop strap through.

Ok.

So……Been using whoop now since July 21. And can totally retract this statement.

I know PB recently put an article out about it, and I agreed with most points in the article.

Its taken me a while to figure out how to actually use it to benefit me, but I will say. When Whoop says your good, you are primed. When it says your not, you are a bag of %#^*.

Im fully onboard with it now minus the cost. Its for sure pricey.

Cheers

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On the topic of HR, bio-watches/rings and the info that they transmit this article on Woodsy is really interesting. I would expect this kind of thing to become a big tool in future in the health sector as more and more people are using these devices.

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Whoop 4.0 tracks body temp actually, and is collecting data on covid.

Interesting times.

Some pro sports are making there athletes wear them to help tell if they possibly have covid. I know the PGA tour does for sure

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Just wait til insurance providers require us to wear Whoop-style straps to determine our level of health and then our premiums.

Smart move from a business perspective. :slight_smile:

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I can’t keep up. I thought vo2max was it… and then it was 600 dollar cranks with power… now its heart rate again? Glad I kept those heart rate straps. (still actually use hr in races for the curiosity of it all)

Anyway, better google whoop.

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Power is still where its at for the ultimate training tool.

HR is being used to break down sleep patterns/recovery and basically create a profile on the user.

HRV is for sure a new (to me anyway) value to determine ones fitness. I think a few different devices measure it, but whoop is claiming to be the most accurate.

When I was running marathons I was eating 5000 + calories a day running 220+ km a week. I never used HR or anything like that.

I knew I was fit when I started dropping weight. Average weight I was hovering around 133lbs. Race weight I was down in the 127lbs range. And I felt it, I was floating on my toes and times came easy.

And trained athletes retain much more muscle memory than an individual that is new to this type of training later in life. I can still walk out the door for an easy 15k at 4:00/k pace. It’s like second nature.

These days I’m floating around 128lbs. But not exercising half as much as I did before.

Fit is fit. You know when your there.

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So you just “started” running marathons? No training plan or education to get you there?

Everyone has their own metrics of oneself, PRs this, how much of that. This time or that time.

I dont care who you are or what your discipline is, your background and training ideology came from somewhere.

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@Enduro_Performance

Sorry. I didn’t just pick it up. I ran all through grade school-college-university-professional. I dabbled with mountain biking in the early to mid 90’s and loved it. But had a few mishaps so I put the bike down to focus on running and staying injury free. I took up mountain biking again in 2010 with another life pause from 2013-2017.

I also stepped away from running in 2012 due to severe depression. Trying to get back to it regularly but I often choose the bike instead these days.

My coach when I was with Brooks Canada was the former Canadian Olympic coach. The most important part to our training was to draw speed from strength. He joked and called it « hardening the legs ».

That strength came from those 220-270km weeks.

I didn’t believe in it at first but I ran personal bests for every distance I’ve ever run off of marathon training.

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Wild story.

Thanks for sharing.

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Just reviving this thread with some new insight.

I stopped using whoop as the fees increased drastically to about 50$ a month. I learned a tonne from it but honestly couldnt stomach it with some other subscriptions I use.

Also, I had picked up a Garmin fenix with wrist based HR monitoring.

I recently jumped on a Fascat training program and the app connects to Garmin. It litterly does the same thing as whoop but is way more tailored to cyclists with respect to HRV/Load accumulation and fatigue monitoring.

Therefore, as a cyclist interested in monitoring HRV and increasing it for better programming, recommend this over Whoop.

-CN out

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Late to the game here but was catching up on threads and this one jumped out at me. Couple of thoughts:

HRV- I’m blown away by the effect alcohol has one this metric. Not surprising since I think we all know that alcohol is a performance detriment but amazed at how different my hrv values are btwn a sober sleep and an alcohol influenced sleep.

Wattage- a fantastic metric but one that can be more difficult to follow in mtb, especially in varied terrain. If you’re using it during a race, wattage is most suited to time trialling and long alpine climbs where you’re trying to maintain a specific value to optimize your performance. That can be difficult on a mtb with the peaks and valleys of pedaling input in technical terrain. In mtb I believe wattage is more useful to analyze after the event by examining averages and NP.

HR- I’ve fallen in love with HR again for longer mtb events like mtb marathons. It’s fantastic for keeping yourself in the zone. Example: I raced the Elgin 120 last Fall and went in with minimal training. I knew that if I went ‘by feel’ I’d probably go too hard at points early in the event and would be in a world of hurt later in the race. Knowing my HR history I set a threshold of 160 and a redline of 165 for the first 100k. 160 was my sweet spot and I aimed to ride btwn 150-160 as much as possible. (for ref I normally avg 169 in a XC/Cross race of 60-90 mins and a max of 180) It can be tough to watch guys you’re normally ahead of ride away from you in the first hour or two because you’re sticking to your plan but it’s also entertaining to pass their shattered souls later in the race.
Over the 7+ hr event I avg’d 151 and my max was 169. Felt solid the entire day and actually raced the last hour like it was a XCO as I battled with another guy. At that point the HR got ignored so I could go ‘all in’ for that final 20k.
Play with different things and find out what works for you.

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