I’m going to keep it simple today.
On my previous post I gave you a simple way to evaluate your lifestyle balance with some tools for making some small changes with a big difference.
The exercise I gave you was a cheap and effective way to assess the balance within your nervous system, the balance that defines whether you are in a state of fight or flight or a state of rest and recovery.
We need both.
We need a system that responds appropriately when required and we also need a system that is able to recover and heal.
Health is about being flexible to respond in the appropriate way at the appropriate time.
Something I personally use which is a little more sophisticated is Heart Rate Variability (HRV).
What is it?
HRV is a measure of the variability between heart beats.
For example, if your heart rate is 60bpm it doesn’t actually beat like a metronome.
If it was beating like a metronome this would mean that it would beat every second, on the second to beat 60 times in one minute.
But actually, 60pbm is an average.
Our heart will sometimes beat at 0.9 seconds, at 0.85 seconds, then at 1.1 seconds, then at 0.95 seconds and so on. The average across a minute is 60bpm.
Heart rate VARIABILITY is the variability between the heart beats. The greater variability the healthier and less stressed the system.
A more regular or metronomic heart beat indicates more stress and less FLEXIBILITY (health is all about flexibility are all!).
How is it measured?
It is very easy to measure HRV yourself with a Bluetooth Heart Rate Monitor Strap (£40 on Amazon) and your Mobile Phone using the Elite HRV App.
You put the strap around your torso and you link it with the app and you take what is called a “Morning Readiness” reading.
This will tell you how “stressed” your system is which you then may use to define your choices that day.
Maybe you need to skip the morning workout and have a lie in.
Maybe you need to fuel up on some healthy foods.
Maybe you need to do some breathing exercising and not let the dramas at work get to you.
Maybe you need to make sure you leave work on time and get an early night.
Basically, you can use this testing system as a little nudge to get you to do the things you know you should be doing but just aren’t doing.
I personally use the app when it comes to my training. Knowing when to push, when to back off and do more recovery.
As a result I have stripped back how often I train as I realised that how I was training, wasn’t enabling me to recover effectively.
I’ve noticed a big difference in my energy, my performance in sessions and positive changes in my body composition too.
This past week has been a particularly bad week for me (I’ll be covering some more on this in a future post). I mostly find if I have one low HRV day, if I take rest I bounce back the following day. That didn’t happen this week and I felt very low too.
I decided to take an extra day off the gym, but I also whacked my calorie intake up much higher than the norm, in the hope that it would help me bounce back. It worked a treat and the next day I was back in the gym feeling good.
This may be a little advanced for some, but if you like data and gadgets, if you train hard and want to dial stuff in a little more, it comes highly recommended.
Over and out!