Adjusting training plan based on recovery metrics? HRV, Training Readiness, Recovery Time etc

Triathlon Forum
21

Looking for thoughts from athletes and coaches experienced in this area, do you regularly modify your training plan based on morning recovery metrics (such as Garmin Training Readiness, HRV, Body Battery High, and Recovery Time, or the equivalent from Oura and Whoop)? As an example, let’s say you have a threshold run on the calendar for today as part of this week’s training schedule. You wake up and your Garmin Morning Report tells you have a Training Readiness in the low range (1-25) and/or your overnight HRV has dropped below your 7 day average. Do you change your plan for today’s training? Or do you power through like you used to? I am wondering if there are improvements to be gained by making modifications based on these metrics or if they should only be considered as a validation for when I feel really lousy, and otherwise just ignore the variation in recovery metrics and stick to the plan. Have you had good experiences where the recovery metrics drove training decisions and this seemed to be an improvement (greater training adaptation, less illness, more and faster race finishes) over the old fashion way of just listening to your body, and bringing a strong mental game to just show up and do the work.

As context, I have been using HRV and Training Readiness for about 18 months, all of which I was not training for a race. I’m trying to figure out for my races in 2024 if Training Readiness and HRV are useful inputs for training decisions or more of a distraction that could lead to not train as hard as I have in the past (When Garmin tells me I have “3 days” of recovery time after a couple of hard workouts, it tends to make me take the foot off the gas for a little while.)

The case you explain I would completely ignore with my athletes at the same time if I happens 2 0r 3 days in a row that something seems off I would ask how they feel.
I guess your main question should be what are those numbers doing and the main answer is they are your second opinion but not your ruler ,
And then it also depends on athletes for some hrv etc etc seems to work for others it does not.
At the end of the day you still have to use your brain as desert dude explained nicely .
They can help to calibrate your brain but they can’t help you to switch off your brain

22

Context: Imma a AWA Gold athlete, self-coached Certified Ironman Coach

TLDR: HRV should inform your training, and that’s about it. Most important metric to keep in mind on top of HRV is still RPE.

However, the best results I get either from the people I coach and myself is when I add a 3rd. dimension to the equation.

X = RPE
Y= HRV
Z = Watts/Pace/HR whatever it may be

And depending on the timeline of the ATP (whether the athlete is on a base, build or peak phase) I teach my athletes to react to their RPE, and adjust their training either scaling it up or down the duration and/or the intensity

Example #1:
Athlete on a BASE phase has a LOW HRV, gets on the bike (or run) and RPE correlates to the LOW HRV as well. In this case I would suggest to cut the training short.

Example #2:
Athlete on a BASE phase has a LOW HRV, gets on the bike (or run) and RPE is normal/expected = proceed to completion.

Example #3:
Athlete on a BASE phase has a LOW HRV, gets on the bike (or run) and RPE is lower than it should = feel free to increase length of workout at the same intensity.

However, on Example #3, if the athlete is on a PEAK phase, I would instead suggest to keep the length of the workout at the same duration BUT increase the power output on the intervals by whatever % they feel it’s possible.

Conversely:

High HRV + HIGH RPE = proceed with the workout as planned
High HRV + LOW RPE = increase either volume and/or intensity

As I said: it should inform the training, but it’s not the most important KPI to keep in mind.

Also worth mentioning, there are certain tricks to elevate the HRV overnight that won’t necessarily translate to a more/well rested athlete (google “breathing exercises to increase HRV”)

EDIT: another little gold nugget of knowledge, on some athletes their homeostasis just happens to be quicker than others. Meaning, sometime you can have an athlete present you with a LOW HRV that has nothing to do with poor recovery but in reality it’s just the body adjusting down to a new baseline. I tend to encounter these phenomena on recovery weeks or taper weeks, when you instead of getting a trending up on the HRV you see one day, maybe trending up followed by a trending down, hence the importance of knowing your athlete and how well they respond to tapers.

By the way, all of this is assuming the athlete is NOT sick, and is not presenting any symptoms of any kind. Should that be the case, I would just have them fall back to either full rest days or active recovery/foam rolling, and such, prioritizing sleep and nutrition.

23

IMO there’s a much simpler way to deal with “gray area” days. Preface that some days you know absolutely that you’re ready for a big one or just not gonna be able to hack it. No need for any metrics or tests or anything on those days.

For the days where you wonder if you should push through, this is what I have done for awhile:

-Warm up 10-15 min easy
-3 min 150bpm
-3 min 160bpm
-1 min 170bpm

The exact numbers aren’t important and obv need to be adjusted for each individual, but it should be 3min just under threshold HR, 3min right around threshold, and 1 min just over. The important things to look at are the pace/power you’re holding and how that compares to your norm. If training is working then power:HR should drift up, but seeing a big drop in power/pace at a given HR is a sure sign that rest may be better than training today. FWIW I’ve had maybe 5 days a year where the power:HR is low enough that I’ve pulled the workout.

Of course this is all within the context of a well planned and executed overall training plan. It’s okay to be fatigued going into hard efforts sometimes (or most of the time). Trying to be 100% recovered for every session is leaving too much on the table.

24

I let it be a general guide and I especially watch it as I taper. I like to see it up in the high 90s by race day.

But I agree with Trail the HRV is finicky and can be wrong. Ex I just spent a 3 week period where my HRV was in the mid/upper forties. I couldn’t get my training readiness above the orange zone as I kept on training with no noticed fatigue. Only thing that changed in my routine is we got a new bed, which my hips thank me for, and it must have taken my body a few weeks to acclimate to the new bed.

25

-Warm up 10-15 min easy
-3 min 150bpm
-3 min 160bpm
-1 min 170bpm

I do it slightly differently using power set points instead of HR. And then watching how my HR responds to the different power outputs. If HR is near threshold when I’m “Zone 2,” that’s usually not a good thing. Unless it’s just because I’m all adrenalined-up before a race.

Garmin is trying to do this in an automated way, e.g. 5-6 minutes into a workout it’ll pop up a notice saying what your “condition” looks like.

But I trust the manual method more at this point. Automated is nice, but the Garmin method is too much of a black box and too vague.

26

-Warm up 10-15 min easy
-3 min 150bpm
-3 min 160bpm
-1 min 170bpm

I do it slightly differently using power set points instead of HR. And then watching how my HR responds to the different power outputs. If HR is near threshold when I’m “Zone 2,” that’s usually not a good thing. Unless it’s just because I’m all adrenalined-up before a race.

Garmin is trying to do this in an automated way, e.g. 5-6 minutes into a workout it’ll pop up a notice saying what your “condition” looks like.

But I trust the manual method more at this point. Automated is nice, but the Garmin method is too much of a black box and too vague.

Yep, that actual protocol is less important than doing it consistently the same so you know it’s apples to apples.

The other good thing about looking at the numbers yourself instead of Garmin doing it is that you learn little bits about yourself along the way.

27

In none of your examples do you actually make a decision contrary to RPE in favor of the HRV metric.

That’s the definition of a “don’t care.”

28

I’ve found the HRV function of the Garmin to be remarkably accurate. If I’ve had a night with a few drinks guaranteed the HRV takes a beating.

What was really interesting though a couple of months ago I trained myself into a hole, just constantly fatigued, didn’t want to get out of bed etc. Sure enough HRV was in the red for the entire duration. What was perhaps more interesting is how long it took to recover, backed the training right back and then one day woke up feeling great and ready to get back into it, looked at HRV and low and behold it was back in the green.

Not sure I’d have the discipline though to back a session off if I was feeling good but HRV showed low.

29

study on the recovery score generated by Whoop - entirely useless…

https://journals.sagepub.com/...77/17479541231206424

https://twitter.com/.../1720477150107550202

the recovery score having zero correlation with all other variables is quite something
please do yourself a favor: use wearables to look at the physiology, and ignore made-up metrics (recovery, readiness, etc.)

HRV as measured by Whoop is somewhat useful, though

https://twitter.com/.../1720468178999075124

The higher HRV is, the lower stress scores are (generally).
However, this relationship is nowhere near strong enough to predict stress from HRV alone (r=-0.46).

More generally, see
https://marcoaltini.substack.com/p/talk-for-the-royal-society-of-medicine