geo wrote:Thanks again Vgpedlr!
Your welcome.
Thats pretty much the conclusion I came to as well as the sensitivity is much improved. But my basic question still stands. Is higher sensitivity that important? I mean I can be extremely accurate with just measuring and watching RHR over time. If it goes up a few beats over a day or two then I know I need to respond to that.
Most folks that have tried both find HRV more sensitive and therefore more reliable. They find that it responds faster than RHR. That has been my experience, though I never used RHR much. But I can see quicker and wider variation from HRV sooner than RHR. Having both numbers can be useful.
With HRV, its very cool to see all the numbers and such that can be generated and how specific effects can cause stress levels to change and such, but is that extra sensitivity all that much more useful?
In my experience, yes.
I've read a lot of what Ben Greenfield (no I dont follow or believe in the guy) had to say about HRV and its definitely fascinating if not a bit complicated.
I've followed him for years and learned a lot, but I disagree with a lot of his opinions as well. I actually learned about HRV from Maffetone's Big Book.
But do you really need that much info? and do you really have to spend all that money as well?
Of course not. Depending on the individual, it's not that expensive. Many athletes already have an HRM, if it's bluetooth compatible then it's just a cheap app purchase. For myself, I had to buy a separate dongle to connect my HRM.
Yes I would love the tech and the sensitivity, but I'm more interested really in the training and consequent health changes than spending all that time recording all those numbers and graphs and such. (Yeah secretly i'm envious of that equipment though:P )
Then forget about it and go on your merry way. I find it fun and useful, but it is not for everybody.
And your little rabbit hole side track gave me an opportunity to check out the latest tech sold on amazon....mmmm portable handheld ECG's for ~$200, now there's a christmas wish gift! Though not sure exactly what I would do with it, but I guess they would show HRV as well...love those ECG charts to really see what your heart is doing!
This looks like fun as well.