Heart Rate Variability - The everyday performance metric

The metric that helps you avoid overtraining. Your heart rate variability can hugely impact the efficiency and performance results of your workouts based on your bodies recovery state.

The simplicity of it is this: a high heart rate variability indicates your body is well balanced and is ready to go into a big workout situation, a low heart rate variability (when not at complete rest), indicates that your body is stressed from a previous workout, lack of sleep, illness etc. and you should opt for a lower intensity activity, such as Yoga, Pilates or walking.

Most fitness trackers on the market today account for the HRV metric and this metric is a great measure for your daily activity. The key is to make sure you’re understanding your own levels of HRV is to measure it at the same time every day (first thing in the morning is usually best) for a given period of time, so you can then intuitively recognise a time to dial back your training and keep your body in prime condition to perform.

Key takeaway here; match your activity to your body’s HRV and the results will come.