Have You ever Heard of a heart rate training ?
You did ? Great ! Is there a chance You may own a heart rate monitor ? YOU DO ? Awesome ! There is a bunch of Mobile Applications that can use it as an assistance in Your recovery.
Ones that i would like to talk about here are the ones who measure Your Heart Rate Variability in other worlds HRV , the app i use personally is Elite HRV for android, if You are an Iphone User You can try an app called Sweat Beat .
Heart Rate Variability reading can give u a great insight on your interconnected state of body and mind. A couple of quick tips and tricks on how to utilize it :
Every morning on a day after and a day of my biggest training sessions , i strap my HR monitor on my chest upon waking , and take 3 min of my time to measure my heart rate variability.
This gives me a very accurate way to determine , how well my body recovered from a previous workout and wether it’s ready for the next one . With that simple data i can adjust the volume of my training. If my score is low at the times i may simply roll back to bed for an hour or two of an extra sleep. It Gives me an opportunity to pick up best time for my hardest workouts. Low score doesn’t bother me at all , I’ll use that time for my core, flexibility or Yoga time . On the other hand It gives me no chance of bitching out, when I “don’t really feel like it” .
I’ve learned it’s accuracy in a hard way a couple of times , getting sick after pushing the limits way to far on a days that according to MY HRV i should clearly take it easy. In that case it’s the most accurate low cost guidance You can get.
You see , you can use Your HRV app for a guided breathing session aswell , it’s one of the function in ELITE HRV. It’s a great way to surpress a state of elevated anxiety especially for people like me who have been fighting with panic attacks previously.
If You’re a Coach ELite HRV has an option of tracking a data of Your whole team, it’s an invaluable tool.