C_Heath

anyone tried it? Thoughts? Reviews?

Monthly fee aint cheap

zen_

Just get a Garmin watch /w body battery if you want some metrics on HRV / stress and recovery, but don't religiously follow the numbers.

canklecat

I use the Elite HRV app with my Wahoo Tickr and phone, most mornings and, occasionally, after a workout. It's kinda-sorta useful, about as much as heart rate is useful. It's not the sole factor in my approach to training. Mostly I go by how I feel.

The only thing I've learned from more frequent HRV checks was to confirm that stimulants such as caffeine and Sudafed for sinus congestion did indeed cause occasional arrhythmia. Cutting back on coffee and using Sudafed only when absolutely necessary eliminated the arrhythmia. I don't need continuous monitoring to determine that.

I've been on 24 hour heart monitoring a couple of times in hospitals, related to surgery and other medical evaluations. It didn't reveal anything interesting, including while sleeping.

I don't see how continuous tracking of the same data would be helpful, at least not at my level and age. I don't have any way to analyze excess data. After a certain point data is easily misinterpreted unless we have access to expert analysis.

Try the Elite HRV app. It's free and can be used with any Bluetooth heart rate monitor. They sell a fingertip monitor but I haven't bothered with that. The app is useful enough that I'd pay a reasonable annual fee for it, but they aren't set up to do that.

Ditto Wattson Blue. Good app, but works only with some phones. It uses the phone camera flash unit in continuous lighting mode as a fingertip heart rate monitor. That worked fine with my old phones which had the flash/light in proximity to the lens, but my current phone has too much separation between the lens and flash, so the Wattson Blue app doesn't work for me now. Also free, lots of useful data.

heresy

I got one a few weeks ago. It is interesting. I am still in the longer calibration period, so the coaching functionality is not yet available. Although, that is not why I got the Whoop.

I have problems sleeping and wanted something that could track it better than my Garmin Fenix 5X. The Garmin has been increasingly providing what I think is inaccurate data. For example, reporting total overnight sleep time of about an hour. I sleep poorly, but not that poorly.

After a few months, I will decide if I am getting anything useful. If not, I will cancel the service and move on.

burnthesheep

I know Gaimon isn't anybody to necessarily give a word on this, but I didn't care for his words about his HRV device.

Despite being sponsored to do his stuff by one of these things, when he talks about it he makes it sound like no more useful than how sometimes your TSB might tell you nothing.

Sometimes you're positive on TSB and can't do jack. Then sometimes your TSB is in the floor and you can nail it. He seemed to say same for his whoop thing. Gave him good numbers to go for something and he felt crap.

Go figure. The body can be confusing sometimes.

OBoile

My garmin also sucks at this, but I have the opposite problem. I've been having some insomnia issues, and the watch keeps saying I'm essentially asleep all night.

Carbonfiberboy 

I take my HRV both resting for 2 minutes and standing for 5 minutes with the Elite HRV app on my phone, then do the orthostatic test on my Polar V800, which more or less duplicates the Elite test, as a check. TMI maybe, but it is helpful. It did catch that I was having a major medical malfunction (PMR) which alerted me that something was really up. All those numbers do tell me when I'm weak and when I'm strong, not that I necessarily modify my training because of them. I also track CTL, TSB, and ATL. I work with those numbers to set up my training, sometimes use HRV and HR to modify. Mostly my TSB tracks right with my HRV., using the sum of my morning resting and standing rMSSD numbers.

I pretty much ignore my sleep. Of course one sleeps less well when one is over-tired. I know that. What I want to know is "why am I overtired?" My training numbers tell me that, as if I didn't already know.

If you don't sleep well, try taking 5 mg of melatonin an hour before bed. I do that every night, no matter how I feel.

canklecat

Ditto. I was enthusiastic about Elite HRV and Wattson Blue at first. But over several months I realized my "feels like" performance didn't necessarily correspond with the HRV data.

But my experience shouldn't be a factor for anyone else -- other than folks with similar health challenges. At 63 with an auto-immune disorder that ended up with thyroid cancer and wildly varying metabolism, my sampling group for active folks with similar health challenges is probably very tiny. Even if everyone with similar challenges formed a valid study group, the data would still be of very limited use.

And I've noticed the HRV data varies wildly depending on things like caffeine intake and meds that can affect heart rate -- Sudafed and others.

I still check my HRV almost every morning, but I never base my training goals on it. Some days when my HRV data looks good and I feel like crap, I just head out for a ride or run with no goals and wait 30-60 minutes through a gradual warmup to see how I feel. If I feel better after a warmup, then I'll do intervals, threshold workouts or fartlek sessions. If not, I just take it easy, move the feet and don't worry about goals. Some days I feel miserable during an early workout, then suddenly have a burst of energy a few hours later and go for a second, harder workout. Those often result in my fastest times riding and running.

So while it's kinda sorta interesting, I'm not gonna spend much money on any HRV app or device. Certainly not on Whoop or the Elite HRV fingertip sensor. But if Elite HRV proposed charging a reasonably annual fee for the app, maybe $3-$5, sure, I'd pay for a subscription and just continue using my Tickr.

zen_

I haven't used the Whoop device (the science would have to be very compelling, and it's not), but the free metrics you get from a Garmin watch are useful if you don't religiously follow the numbers.

All it really does is encourage you do pay attention to stress from all factors (not just training), making rest better, and confirming that basic things like drinking lots of water, and sleeping well are needed for fast recovery. Occasionally you will also see red flags like stress spiking in the middle of the night for no apparent reason, which for me was an indicator of being sick.

Carbonfiberboy 

The Elite app is free, runs on Andriod for sure and I think on iPhone. My wife and I each have accounts on the one app. The app prefers to connect with Bluetooth and likes our Polar H10 transmitter and strap, which we have for our Polar sport watches anyway.

IME the most sensitive measurement is my standing HF power, which I take during a 5-minute Open Reading. The little 2-minute Morning Readiness thing certainly isn't a reliable source of information, however morning resting and morning standing HRs and their difference is worth watching as is the sum of the two rMSSDs and SDNNs from those 2 readings. Those numbers make it really obvious what's gong on. I put all that in a SS along what workout I did that day.

I got the idea of summing the resting and standing numbers from a poster here many years ago, wish I could remember who it was. Different workout stresses change the standing and resting numbers in different ways.

newduguy

I've collected HRV data for years (waking, before bed, during sleep), use Kubios often to analyze HRV during exercise and sleep, and I'm trying the current fad of determining DFA-a1 = 0.75 from HRV to try to identify VT1/LT1. I also use a metabolic cart for VO2/VCO2, muscle oxygen, and blood lactate on a majority of my rides.

I'd say Whoop is not worth is at all. As an HRM, it's not accurate. As a service, it won't tell you anything you don't already know about your body, especially if you're in-tune with yourself. I honestly believe daily HRV readings are not going to tell you much. In my N=1, it really boils down to how you feel as a guide for training.

For ME, daily indicators of fatigue:

• Motivation and general mood immediately upon waking
• Resting HR of previous might's sleep
• Walking downstairs and back up - gives me an indication of how tired my legs are and general fatigue

If you're curious about HRV and you have a quality chest strap, there are a ton of free ways to collect and analyze HRV.