HRV heart rate variability. These devices have been popping
up all over the place over the last couple of years and they've
become pretty popular. And so in this episode of the
podcast, I'm going to teach you everything you need to know
about HRV that you can know whether or not you should spend
a few 100 bucks on a Garmin watch or a Woop band or an Apple
Watch or whatever it may be. Because some of you listening to
this, an HRDV device might make literally 0 difference in the
results you see. But for some of you, it can
provide you with extremely useful information to alter your
training and your recovery plans that you can get better results
in everything that you do in and outside of the gym.
And so throughout this podcast, I'm going to break down the
different tools you can use as well as explain and define what
HRV really is, why it's an effective tool to gauge your
stress and recovery levels, and exactly how you can use those
metrics to adjust your training accordingly week to week.
Greatest things in life all start with a challenge.
You must accept that everything is hard before it gets easy.
Every, every, every, every, everything you want in life
begins with a hard path begins. The first thing to understand
with HRV heart rate variability is that it's not just about
fitness. A lot of people assume this is
strictly used for athletes, especially ones who are doing
endurance sports or things like mixed martial arts where you're
constantly going from a low intensity to a high intensity
and being explosive, right? That's not the case.
HRV can be a tool to really just gauge your overall health,
well-being, and stress levels. So somebody could be just
training a couple days a week, but they have an extremely
taxing and stressful lifestyle due to their career or their
family situation or maybe some trauma they're going through and
their stress levels are chaotic and they need to recover and
take care of themselves and their well-being.
They can use HRV as well. In fact, sometimes that might
even be a more applicable way to use it for most people.
However, I would suggest most people who are probably going to
land on this video based on the other types of content we
create, which is all fitness based.
You should be using or considering using HRV if you
want to make sure you're getting the most out of your training
and not allowing the stress from other areas of your life to
enter into your training recovery.
Because if your other areas of life are busy or hectic are
stressful and that's causing a level of stress that is then
bleeding into your training, allowing you to not train as
hard as you can, not train as as often as you can, or not recover
well enough to continue training often enough to get the result
you're after, then using HRV might be something that you want
to do. So what exactly is HRV?
Well, the definition is pretty damn literal.
I mean, it's right in the name, heart rate variability, and it
means it's the variability between heartbeats.
So we're literally trying to measure the time in between each
heartbeat. So, for example, if you have 60
beats per minute, that does not necessarily mean that you have
one beat per second sixty times in a row to lead to a minute,
because you could have 0.98 seconds and then you can have
1.02 seconds. It could be 0.7 seconds.
There is going to be variability because each beat is going to
take a different amount of time. And that means there's going to
be space and gaps in between each beat that vary over the
course of many heartbeats. And that's what HRV is
measuring. It is measuring the time between
each and every heartbeat. Now, why care?
Why should you care about your HRV score, right?
And why should you care about the time between each heartbeat,
which seems very minuscule, seems kind of like a small minor
detail to be paying attention to.
But that small minor detail is the best way to gauge what type
of autonomic nervous system we are stepping into.
And so the autonomic nervous system has two branches.
We have the parasympathetic and the sympathetic.
The sympathetic nervous system is our fight or flight.
This is the, you know, people talk about the caveman.
There's a Saber tooth tiger and it has to Sprint and get away or
attack. That is our sympathetic nervous
system. Stress demand high stimulus.
This is strength training. This is power development.
This is go, go, go. High stress in your life.
Parasympathetic is chill. This is relaxing, this is
getting a massage, maybe doing yoga and stretching and
meditating and these kind of things because we are in our
parasympathetic tone, which is rest and digest or recover.
So we have these two types and we have to be able to balance
them, but the only way for us to truly know we are more
dominantly in one versus the other is to track our HRV.
Now we can guess because most people can say I'm really sore,
I'm really tired, I'm really stressed out, I'm anxious.
You're probably in your sympathetic nervous system.
However, when you start training a lot, you might be stressed on
an internal basis. You might be stressed in your
joints, in your muscles, or might be inflammation you're
unaware of. And you're not going to be able
to intuitively understand that, right?
But your HRV score can tell you that you are in a stressed
state, and that can guide us in our training and everything
else. So when we use HRV, it's just a
tool to track these two things. And if we look at our HRV
scores, it's really just looking at which ones high and which
ones low. If our HRV score is really high,
we have a high number. And I'm just speaking in
generality, right? High as in good.
Because the Garmin watch the aura ring, the woops, they all
track it differently, right? They all have different scoring
and stuff like that. But all of them follow the same
pattern. Meaning when HRV is high, you
have a high score, whether the bar is raised or the number is
up. That typically means you are in
the green light. And that is you can train, you
can do whatever because you are mainly in a parasympathetic
tone. You are recovered.
That's what that means. If your HRV is low, that means
you're stressed out, you're in the red.
That means that you are under recovered and you might not be
able to perform at your best because maybe you just got done
performing or you had some poor sleep or some argument or some
bad day at work. But you had something go on that
caused a lot of stress in your life.
And now your HRV score is tanked because of your nervous system
being shifted into this sympathetic tone.
Now knowing what I just said, you would probably assume high
is good, right? A high HRV means good.
It means better, it means you're recovered.
It means like that's where we want to be.
And that's not exactly what it means.
Because the truth is, if your HRV score is always up, it means
that there's no stress present, which in certain areas of your
life is amazing. You don't really want stress
present, but if you are trying to grow, if you're trying to get
stronger, if you're trying to run faster, if you're trying to
lose body fat, if you're trying to do anything that requires a
stress before an adaptation can occur, which is how every type
of performance or body transformation happens, right?
You can't build muscle if you don't first stress the muscle by
creating a high demand stimulus that breaks down the muscle
tissue and therefore you recover from the stress and adapt by
growing bigger, stronger muscles.
Well, if we never get to that stressed state, we are actually
never pushing our body to a place where it is going to be
required to adapt to that stimulus and actually build
muscle from it. And so as you can see on this
chart, we want to have a balance between these two.
We actually want to be able to stress our body out so that we
can essentially adapt in a favorable way because whatever
goal you're chasing requires you to adapt from a stress.
The adaptation is the goal, the stress is the path, but you
cannot adapt if you don't recover.
And that's why, as you can see, there's these up, down bars
because we need to be recovered in order to go to the gym, hit
it hard and apply a great amount of stress.
But then we need to back off so that we can recover from that
stress. But once we are recovered from
that stress, now we got to go back to the gym and apply that
stress once again. So we have this pattern of being
being stressed and recovered, stressed and recovered.
And that's what a good HRV score is.
In fact, if you really think of, again, just looking at the name
as literally and logically as you can, heart rate variability,
if there's no variability in your score and it's just
constantly good, it means you're not pushing yourself in the gym.
You're always recovered and you're never applying enough
stress to actually transform your physique.
So with that being said, this is kind of what I recommend as the
ideal ratio because balance really is the key here.
A good rule of thumb is to have two to three low HRV days per
week. That means you have 4 to 5
moderate or high HRV days per week.
And I say moderate to high because it's not always going to
be perfect. Like this graph you see on the
screen is perfect. It's it's high green, low red,
high green, low red. It's just like perfect across
the board because AI designed it.
So it's trying to be perfect, but that's not reality.
What is reality is probably like green, red, yellow, green, red,
yellow, green, because you are going to be probably training
while you're still recovering from that stress that you
applied. So if you are in the red, it
means yesterday you hit it hard, you did your job.
You should probably have a rest day or an active recovery day
the next day. You still might not be in the
green, but if you're in the yellow, if you're moderate, you
shouldn't take another rest day. We need volume in order to grow.
We need intensity in order to build muscle.
But you can choose exercises that are less intense or less
intensive on the nervous system, on the joints and don't require
as much recovery demand from you.
You could also choose to do a lower intensity cardio on that
day to just continue recovery, but still work on the
adaptations you're after, like aerobic capacity, if that's your
goal. So the point is, is that it's
not going to be perfect and it's never going to be exactly 2 to 3
low and four to five high. It could be moderate.
You could have a whole week of low and just need a deload week.
You could have, despite programming perfectly.
You could have a whole week of moderate and feel like you're
pushing it in the gym, but maybe you're just not getting after it
as much as you thought or you're really on top of everything
else. Maybe you can do more volume
than you realize because you're sleeping 9 hours a day, Your job
is cush and not stressful right now, and you are in a state or a
season that you can apply more stress.
Well, your HIV score is going to tell you that and you should
follow it. But if it's constantly in the
red, I can promise you you're probably too stressed and you
need to look at it now. If you have done everything
under the sun and you are still in the red, seek out a
professional, whether it's a coach or a doctor or something.
Because there's probably something going on that is
throwing off your score on HRV, which is very rare.
But there are times where people can be taking it off and not
being consistent, or they're doing something that throws off
their score and they're reading so it's not accurate.
Or you got something going on that's stressing you out and you
just don't even realize it. Go seek professional help.
So now that we know HRV can be useful, we know what it is, we
know why it works and how it works, and ultimately we know
that it's just a guide. It's going to tell us what we
can do with our training and when we're recovered when we're
not. And that's the biggest thing
that you need to look at. The first step in actually
applying this information and doing something with it is to
get an HRV device. So get some kind of device
that's going to track it. The top five HRV devices
according to ChatGPT, which I'm assuming means that what is most
popular on Amazon and what is purchased the most often is
going to be these five devices. The first one is going to be the
Whoop Band, which is known for its 24/7 tracking, detailed
recovery metrics and user friendly app.
This is ideal for athletes. This is one that is really
common across people. And just from my experience, I
think it's probably one of the easier ones to wear and use
because it's it's a very light band that goes on your wrist.
You can also get ones that go on your upper arm.
And I do believe they have a chest strap monitor as well.
So they have different options and it's just not clunky.
It's not getting in the way of training.
So it is a good device. And I would say this too, and
this goes for every device I'm going to go over the devices
that are going to be the best and most accurate, have the most
research because they are the most successful.
And therefore they actually invest money back into research
to prove that their device works.
So look at the device and find the research using the device.
And especially when a device like the Woot band is it's all
this is all it does. There's no whoop watch and whoop
necklace and oh also we sell whoop clothing and I mean I'm
sure they do 'cause every brand does but you get the point.
I'm going to talk about Apple Watch in a SEC.
Apple is not a HRV company. The Apple Watch is a smart
watch. It just also does HRV.
So it's probably not going to be the best one to use.
But #1 whoop #2 is. Or ring.
This is very similar to whoop as far as what it tracks.
It tracks HRV during sleep instead of the other ones
actually tracking it after sleep.
You wake up and test it most of the time accordingly with
exceptional accuracy, which I would agree.
The ordering does well with tracking HRV as a score.
It provides detailed readiness scores every morning when you
wake up. It is.
I've used this as well. I've tested most of these.
It's a really easy app to use. The thing about the ordering
that I don't like is that you can't wear it when you lift.
It gets in the way. It's very annoying and it just
gets scratched up. I don't want to lift with
jewelry on, so I always took it off.
And then it kind of defeats the purpose of tracking your
activity. So I'm not a huge fan of
ordering for that and for the purpose of step counting.
When I type a lot, and the more I type, the more my fingers
move, the more my fingers move, the more likely that my step
count is inaccurate. And I found that to be true when
I wore the ordering and I wore another device on my wrist and
they were different and I actually wore a pedometer.
I put it in my pocket. I tracked all three to see
'cause I have clients that asked me this and the ordering was way
higher than the rest of them via step count.
The third device is a Garmin watch.
Garmin's do include HRV tracking so that's what I'm wearing right
now. I don't actually use this for
HRV tracking to be honest, but it's a great tool for GPS
functioning and for running. I think Garmin is Agps and a
running company. It's not an HRV company.
It works and it does track your heart rate well because it has
to while running. So I think it's honestly
probably the best runner up to WOOP for HRV performance wise.
But they they are again, like if we're just talking HRV, get a
company that just does HRV. They're going to pour the most
research into that topic. The third one is the Polar H10
chest strap, one of the most accurate HRV monitors on the
market. And it's the least convenient
for most people because you have to wake up, you got to put on
your chest. A lot of times you got to get it
a little wet because the sensor has to read you and you have to
have it damp. Unless you get like get real
sweaty during your sleep, then I guess you can just throw it on,
but you put it underneath there right after you wake up.
You can't drink coffee, you can't eat anything, nothing like
that. First, right when you wake up,
put it on. You have to lay down and then
basically meditate and do deep breathing while it tracks your
score for about 1 to 2 minutes. And so there's a timer and it's
doing it very inconvenient. That's the last thing I want to
do when I wake up at 5:00 in the morning.
I want to try to keep waking up, not lay back down and track my
heart rate. However, Polar is probably like
the OG in it. It's also why if you look at
these devices, it's the most ghetto looking.
The other one's got like gold finishes and stuff like Polar is
just, I don't know it, it doesn't like it's not the
newest, the shiniest, the coolest, but they're one of the
OG's. They were one of the first ones
to do it. So I will say they probably are
the best and most accurate for getting a general score every
day for your HRV. But if you want to track all the
other stuff and you don't want to wear a heart rate monitor on
your chest all damn day, it's probably not the one to go with.
And the last one is Apple Watch, which it's not specifically an
HRV device. It just has apps from third
parties that can track your HRV. And that means it is a very,
very, very expensive digital watch that kind of tracks HRV on
the side. I probably wouldn't recommend
it. I don't think it's the best for
these things, but it's cool and Apple Watch is cool.
So there's that. I would go with the loop strap
out of all these or the Polar or the the Garmin, Those are the
three most versatile. The Garmin and the loop strap
are are are probably my 2 top for sure.
So now that we know what devices we can use, what do we do to
read it? So this is really simple.
Number one, you need to track your HRV every single day.
HRV is absolutely pointless if you don't track it daily because
even in the first couple weeks, the score kind of means nothing.
You're not going to change anything in your training or
your lifestyle based on the score of the first couple weeks.
It's the sequence of consistent days and weeks stacked up that
really starts to give you an accurate score, which gives me,
you know, goes to my next point, which is focus on the trend over
days. Not a single score.
So you can wake up and see the score, but day 12345 all the way
through the probably second week, those individual scores
don't mean much, but after a couple weeks you can see the
trend. And then after a month or two,
you can see a trend and where it's going and your, your device
is going to be able to start reading things better.
So consistency is very important.
It's important to follow the trend, not any individual day.
Don't get married to 1 number. Look at the whole trend.
It is also very important to make sure you do this first
thing in the morning. Either A, you're wearing a
device that tracks it all day and then it gives you a score in
the morning, or B, you do it in the morning.
If you're using something like a Polar or even a Whoop strap or
something where you're just using it to put on and track
your HRV, that is a point in time in the morning where you're
going to have your best baseline stable state.
So your body, your heart rate, everything is going to be in its
most stable raw place. This is why it's good to take
your weight even in the morning. But we haven't had a bunch of
fluids going through us. We haven't had any caffeine.
There's no stimulants literally being consumed.
But also visually looking into lenses or, or screens, it is our
most stable and raw state. It's the best baseline that we
can use to track HRV and not have anything as a variable
distract or or detour that track, right?
That, that record, we're going to be able to get a score that's
very raw. And then last after consistent
use, let it help guide your training.
Don't let it dictate because there's going to be times where
you're stressed from something and it it might actually tank
your HRV. And I still believe you should
go train because you might need to actually relieve that stress
by going to the gym. The gym might be a safe place
for you that you actually feel so much better in life and you
don't want to skip the gym constantly because of that.
Now if you are constantly low, it does mean it should guide
your decisions with your lifestyle, with your sleep, with
your nutrition, with your hydration.
Maybe even with the type of training we can still train in
the gym and tone down the the demand on your nervous system by
lowering the loads and going for higher reps, using less barbell
movements, using more machines and cables and bands, doing more
mobility and cardio. Low intensity metrics versus
hard high intensity stuff. Like there's ways to make your
training less intense and and cooperate better with a lower
HRV score. So I don't suggest that you skip
the gym if your HRV score sucks, but you got to let it guide your
decisions is the point. Again, don't let it dictate your
program entirely or what you do. Let it guide your decisions out
of the gym to help you influence your decisions in the gym.
And if you're outside of the gym lifestyle is on point, but your
HIV score is still low and you're not recovering, then
maybe you do need to tone down the training and you can let
this guide you in doing that. So to conclude, this really
boils down to a few answers in my opinion, right?
Like, is this critical for results?
No. Is it helpful for stressed
individuals? Yes.
Is it a useful tool for serious lifters and athletes?
Yes. Is it worth it for body
composition results? Maybe, Right.
So I think that at the end of the day, you don't need this.
This is like a supplement. It's a cool tool that can help
you, but you don't need it. There's a lot of data to support
what HRV is and how it can impact you, but you don't need
it. It's not critical.
Is it helpful for people who are stressed?
Absolutely. It can be the red flag that
actually kind of slaps you in the face.
There's a lot of people, and I can relate to this, where you're
just a stubborn person who does not want to slow down or recover
anything. And sometimes people can tell
you. Sometimes you can even know for
a fact that you're maybe not sleeping enough.
But until you get a coach or a metric like an HRV score telling
you day after day after day, you got to do this or you're not
going to get where you want to be, you might not actually
create the change. So I think it is very helpful
for stressed individuals, not because it's a magic tool, but
because it might be the accountability and provide the
awareness that you need. Now for serious lifters and
athletes, I would say yes, it is a useful tool because these
metrics allow you to guide, better guide your decisions with
your program, with your intensity.
And you can wave your intensity in the gym day-to-day.
So you can have days of higher intensity, higher loads, higher
volumes and days of lower intensity, lower loads and lower
volumes. And you can alternate these to
optimize your recovery so that those higher intensity and
volume days are trained at your best.
Because a lot of times people are always in that like yellow
or red HRV, and they have a high volume program, but their
intensity and effort sucks because they're really not fully
recovered, which they may not even realize.
But if you had something like this and then you could wave
your intensity up and down and your volume up and down
throughout the week, you would be able to train in your hardest
and best state in those moments where your HRV is in the green,
right? And you can get the most out of
it. And then for athletes who are in
combat sports like MMA or endurance athletes or Sprint
athletes, track athletes, any professional athlete, I think
it's a very useful tool because when it comes to conditioning
and cardio, it can be a very, very valuable metric.
And it can show you if you're becoming more well conditioned
for your sport. Because the greater your HRV
score is as you progress, it means the more conditioned you
are. If you continue to push in the
gym and you are running faster times or longer distances and
you're able to maintain a positive balance in your HRV,
that is a direct result of you being more aerobically fit and
conditioned, which you may need for your sport.
And then lastly, is it worth it for body composition results?
I say maybe because really it's not going to create a calorie
deficit for you. It's not going to build muscle
for you. But if it can guide your
decisions to be less stressed. And we know that stress
increases cortisol, and research shows that cortisol is directly
correlated with overeating due to cravings and excess hunger.
And yeah, I think it can be helpful because it can teach you
that you're stressed. It can help you make better
decisions because you have more awareness around these things.
It can also help you guide your decisions in the gym, which may
also lead to more consistency as well.