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HRV seems misleading when it defaults to 7 day average

4170945
over 1 year ago

I find myself clicking the "overnight averages" button every time I'm viewing the HRV screen. This week is a perfect example of what seems like misleading default data.

I was away from home last weekend on a vacation, Thursday to Sunday, eating a poor diet. Then Monday I'm home and eating healthy and sleeping in my own bed.

If you look at my HRV screen as is, it shows green "Balanced" dots from Thursday to Sunday. Then Monday and Tuesday are Orange, and Wednesday(Today) is red. (7d Avgs of 55, 55, 54, 54, 52, 51, 50)

If you click on the button for "overnight averages" it shows the true story, which is my HRV crashing down Friday and Saturday, And then coming back on Tuesday to a healthy number. (Overnight avgs of 54,51,43,47,45,57,52)

Am I mistaken in feeling like the HRV by default is misleading? It makes it seem like I'm in the orange and red now at home when the reality is the low HRV from the weekend are only now visible in the rolling 7 day average.

The default view should be of the overnight averages not the 7 day. The green/orange/red color coding should be applied to the overnight average and not the 7 day.

  • +1 over 1 year ago

    I think the reason is that individual good/bad nights are not that significant for HRV, and on the other hand, bad HRVs from a couple of days ago can still affect your physical condition. So it's better to base the HRV to a 7 day rolling average, which at the same time smoothes individual outliers, and also accounts for past couple of nights' HRV.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to Bitti

    I have a personal experience on this: a couple of weeks ago I did a long 2-day hike with a heavy backpack, causing two nights to have a bad HRV. After I came back and slept one night, my nighly HRV average was back to normal. But I definitely didn't feel completely ok when that happened, it required several more "good" nights.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to Bitti

    Perhaps it is as straightforward as this. 

    I guess this question for me came to be because I am also currently getting a "Strained" training status right now, which I know bases itself off HRV status among other things (VO2 max, Load). The description even says "HRV status indicates your body may be struggling to recover." But if my HRV the last 2 days is averaging balanced it feels like the strained status is lagging behind when it should have.

    It's not a big deal. I probably get too into the details and metrics. 

    I see what you're saying about smoothing out outliers, which ultimately is probably the safer thing.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to 4170945

    Yes, unfortunately averaging also necessarily means lagging (that's what you pay for smoothing out the outliers). Slight smile

    On the other hand, it also lags in the other direction: if you have a single bad night, your training status doesn't plummet immediately.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to Bitti

    This is a very wise way of seeing it. Thank you! Pray