Exercise, Recovery & Readiness

HRV is also studied as an index reflecting the balance of exercise and recovery. This page explains the relationship between exercise and HRV, with sources.

Exercise grows HRV

Regular aerobic exercise has been associated, in meta-analysis, with higher resting HRV (especially the parasympathetic component) (Sandercock et al., 2005). As the body adapts to training, the heart becomes more able to "fluctuate."

The rhythm of load and recovery

After hard exercise, HRV temporarily drops and returns with recovery. Observing this rise and fall has spread in the athletic world as a way to gauge "how recovered am I today?" (Plews et al., 2013).

Figure: an illustration of overnight HRV dipping after a hard load and returning with recovery. The dotted line is your own baseline. The figure is illustrative, not actual measurements.

• Monitoring training status via autonomic (HRV) regulation has been examined in systematic review and meta-analysis (Bellenger et al., 2016)
• What matters is not a single day's value but the trend from baseline, read over time rather than from single values. How to read a rise or fall is not straightforward, though — its meaning can depend on context (Plews et al., 2013)

How Feelmo handles it

Feelmo reads the relationship between daily behavior, including exercise, and HRV in the context of the Regulation Score. How metrics are integrated is the core of Lumo Core and is not disclosed, as a trade secret.

References

1. Sandercock GR, Bromley PD, Brodie DA. Effects of exercise on heart rate variability: inferences from meta-analysis. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. 2005;37(3):433–439.
2. Plews DJ, Laursen PB, Stanley J, Kilding AE, Buchheit M. Training adaptation and heart rate variability in elite endurance athletes: opening the door to effective monitoring. Sports Medicine. 2013;43(9):773–781.
3. Bellenger CR, Fuller JT, Thomson RL, Davison K, Robertson EY, Buckley JD. Monitoring Athletic Training Status Through Autonomic Heart Rate Regulation: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Sports Medicine. 2016;46(10):1461–1486.