TacticalBarbell.com

Hi everyone,

I recently started focusing on recovery and have looked for some ways to counter balance the impact of shift work on my training and recovery.

On top of tracking my meals via my fitness pal, tracking my sleep and employing active recovery sessions(yoga and walking), I have started using an app HRV4TRaining https://www.hrv4training.com/

I am no way affiliated with it, but have to say overall I am impressed.
It works on apple and android and is affordable at $15 AUD.

The bonus is it runs off your camera and doesn’t require an external sensor.

I usually use operator I/A as my cluster and I think it would be a great way to decide when to do only 3 sets as opposed to 10 sets on a MS day. On days I have felt great it has told me to take it easy and on days I felt shit it has told me I could train hard. I only have 3 weeks of data, but so far it has always been pretty spot on.

Have a read up on the research and see if it is something you would like to employ.

Hi Maxrip,

Agreed, it’s a great app, especially since the camera makes it very convenient to use!

I have used it extensively during my triathlon days (I have about 1500 recordings from that period), and it correlated extremely well with endurance training (the conditioning side).
On days I felt great but it said to take it easy I sometimes decided to not listen, which usually then set me up for a bad week with lots of struggling. I guess I should have listened and take it easy

When I stopped racing I started focusing a lot more on strength work, and I found that HRV correlated much less to subjective performance... meaning if I went by feel on when to take it hard or when to take it easy (usually I know what kind of day it is after a few warmup sets) regardless of what the app said I found no adverse consequences.
I did follow much more structured “do this” programs of course than OP IA so your experience might be different

Ultimately I think it’s another data point, it takes a while to incorporate it properly
For example if it says you should take it easy but you feel great, and have a 90% session today but rest day tommorow you might still disregard it and push today
Whereas if you had an apex session and some heavy deadlifts planned the next 2 days it might be safe to listen to it

I found that the TB framework works very well with going on feel and what is planned for the week so I stopped using the app (and other data metrics)

Give it a year and see what you learn from it

Brgds
Claude

Meant to add that their blog and articles section on their site is very very good too!

claude512 wrote:Hi Maxrip,

Agreed, it’s a great app, especially since the camera makes it very convenient to use!

I have used it extensively during my triathlon days (I have about 1500 recordings from that period), and it correlated extremely well with endurance training (the conditioning side).
On days I felt great but it said to take it easy I sometimes decided to not listen, which usually then set me up for a bad week with lots of struggling. I guess I should have listened and take it easy

When I stopped racing I started focusing a lot more on strength work, and I found that HRV correlated much less to subjective performance... meaning if I went by feel on when to take it hard or when to take it easy (usually I know what kind of day it is after a few warmup sets) regardless of what the app said I found no adverse consequences.
I did follow much more structured “do this” programs of course than OP IA so your experience might be different

Ultimately I think it’s another data point, it takes a while to incorporate it properly
For example if it says you should take it easy but you feel great, and have a 90% session today but rest day tommorow you might still disregard it and push today
Whereas if you had an apex session and some heavy deadlifts planned the next 2 days it might be safe to listen to it

I found that the TB framework works very well with going on feel and what is planned for the week so I stopped using the app (and other data metrics)

Give it a year and see what you learn from it

Brgds
Claude

Thanks for the response.I don’t have enough data to be conclusive yet but so far it’s been good.

I thought I would try and tie it back into TB by mentioning OP I/A, but to be honest I am using it to track bjj,adding a high volume of LSS work (green protocol) and dealing with shift work.

For 15 dollars and a min a day, I can’t see any drawbacks so far.

Sounds good, go for it!

BTW I saw in another thread that you bought a garmin watch... does it have the allday stress widget?

I found that very useful to gauge how different activities (and coffee, food, alcohol etc) throughout the day affect your recovery, that together with hrv4training gave me some great insights!

claude512 wrote:Sounds good, go for it!

BTW I saw in another thread that you bought a garmin watch... does it have the allday stress widget?

I found that very useful to gauge how different activities (and coffee, food, alcohol etc) throughout the day affect your recovery, that together with hrv4training gave me some great insights!

I believe it does though I am not sure how useful it will be to me.
I work in LE and do a lot of shift work. My stress markers are usually pretty damn high haha.