Check out the latest episode on the Oxygen Addict triathlon podcast, featuring our work and a lot of practical tips on how to use HRV4Training and heart rate variability to make adjustments to your training
Dr. Marco Altini is the creator of the HRV4Training App. In this episode, we dive deep into heart rate variability, and why it might well be the most important training tool to getting the most out of your limited training time! Thank you Rob for having me! Special thanks to Rob Wallace for inviting me to speak to triathlon coaches in Australia about HRV and our work with HRV4Training. In the one hour webinar, I cover:
The webinar was recorded and is available at the link below. Enjoy. In this series of posts, I discuss Heart Rate Variability (HRV) Biofeedback, and in particular:
While part Four of this guide is mainly focused on athletic performance, Parts One, Two, and Three are generic and cover aspects applicable to any other population in terms of the benefits of improved emotional self-regulation for health and performance. Learn more at this link. We have partnered with the Biomedical department of the University of Milan to provide free Heart Rate Variability apps in the context of a new study investigating the effect of home isolation on the cardiac autonomous nervous system.
Prolonged isolation studies during quarantines have focused mainly on the clinical effects of isolation, reporting emotional disorders, irritability, insomnia, poor concentration, deterioration of working capacity, stress symptoms and decision-making skills. The reduction in physical activity seems to contribute to the establishment of these dynamics. The purpose of this project is instead to monitor the psycho-physiological impact of home isolation that is occurring in Italy as a consequence of the general lockdown aimed at containing the pandemic spread of covid-19. Psychological monitoring will focus, through the remote administration of validated questionnaires, on sleep disorders (Pittsburg Sleep Quality, PSQI), affective and emotional states (UCLA Loneliness scale, Profile of Mood States, POMS), on trait and state anxiety (State-Trait anxiety Inventory, STAI) and on the level of physical activity (International Physical Activity Questionaire, IPAQ). Physiological monitoring will evaluate the modulation of heart rate by the autonomic nervous system (HRV), as measured using the Camera HRV app, so that questionnaires data and objective physiological stress levels can both be analyzed. I would like to thank professor Giampiero Merati of the University of Milan for involving us in this project and I hope our tools we'll be helpful to gather objective data on ANS activity. Our own data tells quite a clear story, as we still struggle to adapt to the new normal. In the past weeks, we have developed a free (and private) camera-based heart rate app to support self-awareness as well as data donation projects in the context of the current covid-19 pandemic. Since the start of the outbreak, I've been approached by many doctors and scientists that have been looking into simple and cost-effective methods to identify and manage individuals that might require additional care. Physiological measurements (for example resting heart rate, HRV or temperature), are all great candidates as these parameters have shown a consistent response to infections (you can find some data here). At the same time, many research institutions and governments are starting data donation initiatives to track covid-19 symptoms, at a much larger scale. One of the main examples of this approach is the corona-datenspende app launched by the Robert Koch Institute (the National Health Institute in Germany), which also aims at integrating (anonymized) objective physiological data collected with wearables such as Fitbit and Garmin smart watches. I was recently made aware of the project by my former PhD supervisor, professor Oliver Amft, who is actively involved with the Robert Koch Institute and also familiar with our work on camera-based measurements. Needless to say, a free camera-based heart rate monitoring app could empower people from a self-awareness point of view, as well as give them the opportunity to contribute to these project. Hence, in the past week we have developed Camera Heart Rate, a free app that can be used to measure resting heart rate, and can share data only via the Health app, so that each user is in total control of their data and privacy. The app relies on HRV4Training's technology and is currently available on iOS in selected areas. Please read below to learn more. Why resting heart rate?Something as simple as measuring resting heart rate, is a very useful tool to capture changes in physiology due to our body fighting various forms of stress, including infections [1]. In particular, infections tend to show up in the data as increased heart rate (and reductions in HRV). You have probably noticed these changes in the past if you were ever sick while also collecting data longitudinally. This can happen a short time before we actually realize that something is going on (say a day or two in my experience). Already years ago, Michael Snyder at Stanford University ran studies in free-living using commercially available sensors and found quite striking relationships between heart rate and infection (if you are into papers, I highly recommend this one [2]). We have also shown reductions in HRV and increases in HR with respect to self annotated sick days, in this blog post. Infections or getting sick in general, are one of the few conditions in which I would almost consider heart rate superior to HRV (or at least equal). Why is that? First, heart rate does not change much on a day to day basis, and is less sensitive than HRV to changes in physiological stress due to for example training, lifestyle stress, etc. (we have previously quantified these differences, with heart rate changing only 0.5–1% in response to hard training sessions for example, and HRV changing on average 5–8%, full paper here [3]). Secondly, heart rate changes to a much greater extent when facing an infection. Hence heart rate can be a simpler marker to look at, less affected by other stressors, and we could look at changes in heart rate to make sure things are staying within a normal range (based on your historical data). Privacy by designThe Camera Heart Rate app does not include any backend server and stores data only locally on the users' phone. The only data sharing option in the app is via Health, which allows users of the app to push heart rate data to Health after the measurement. Once you have linked the Camera Heart Rate app to Health, the corona-datenspende (or another service that you use) can read the data from Health for further processing. Camera Heart Rate behaves simply as a heart rate monitor, and does not provide any interpretation or diagnostic. Learn moreCamera Heart Rate is powered by HRV4Training, the first validated camera-based heart rate variability (HRV) app. You can learn more about resting heart rate and measurement guidelines at the Camera Heart Rate FAQ page. Camera Heart Rate is currently available on iOS and supports English, Italian and German. We have released the app only in selected areas, but if you are interested in potentially using it also for your initiative, please feel free to reach out. References[1] Buchan, C. A., Bravi, A., & Seely, A. J. (2012). Variability analysis and the diagnosis, management, and treatment of sepsis. Current infectious disease reports, 14(5), 512–521.
Chicago. [2] Li, X., Dunn, J., Salins, D., Zhou, G., Zhou, W., Rose, S. M. S. F., … & Sonecha, R. (2017). Digital health: tracking physiomes and activity using wearable biosensors reveals useful health-related information. PLoS biology, 15(1), e2001402. Chicago. [3] Altini, M., & Amft, O. (2016, August). Hrv4training: Large-scale longitudinal training load analysis in unconstrained free-living settings using a smartphone application. In 2016 38th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC) (pp. 2610–2613). IEEE. With the ongoing global pandemic, the medical community has been looking into alternatives that can help identifying and managing individuals that might require additional care, which brought a renewed interest into wearables or in general in tools that can provide physiological measurements. Heart rate, HRV, temperature, are all great candidates as these parameters have shown a consistent response to infections.
In this context, in the past few weeks we have started a few collaborations with research institutions in Italy and Germany, providing the technology required to further investigate the relationship between (among other parameters), resting physiology and COVID-19 infections. However, as a user of our system, you might want to know what to look at as a potential indicator of infection or sickness based on our current knowledge and published research. In this post, I cover the basics of heart rate in the context of infections, and show a new feature we have built in HRV4Training Pro to help you identify more easily periods in which heart rate is abnormal, and therefore might require more attention. I hope you'll find the material and new feature useful. Full post at this link. Stay safe. Special thanks to Pro triathlete Scott Bayvel for inviting me for a chat on his YouTube channel. In the video, we cover the following:
Link here. Enjoy EPISODE LINK
You can find the episode here. EPISODE SUMMARY HRV4Training founder Marco Altini is on the show this week to explain heart rate variability (HRV) and how monitoring this metric can be used to guide endurance training. EPISODE NOTES
Learn more about HRV4Training or Marco at their respective websites and follow them on Instagram and Facebook. Read part 1 of Marco's guide to HRV-guided training on Medium. Then use the links in the article to access parts 2 and 3. Grazie mille Omar e Bikeitalia per questa intervista su HRV4Training e la variabilità cardiaca
Cos’è l’HRV? Come si misura? Quali sono i dati che dobbiamo considerare per monitorare il nostro allenamento? Come gestire al meglio lo stress dell’allenamento? Link qui. I was invited to Tampere university of technology for Julia Pietilä’s PhD defense where I had the honor to act as the “opponent”, according to Finnish protocol.
Julia did great work on HRV data and its relation to physical activity, sleep, alcohol intake and more (a few extra words on her work can be found below, while the full text of the thesis is available here). Special thanks to Ilkka Korhonen, who is (among other things) CTO at Firstbeat, a company I’ve always admired for the sound scientific approach. I’m grateful for the invitation and the opportunity to talk about my work and learn more about the research being done here. I really had a great time and it is always nice to find like minded people who understand the value of collaboration and research even when working in a similar business or addressing the same market. Here is a very brief overview of the thesis: In this thesis, a very large dataset comprising thousand of individuals and multiple days of data per individual were used to analyse the relationship between resting physiological parameters such as HRV and population level parameters (age, BMI, etc.) as well as acute stressors such as alcohol intake and physical activity. In particular, the thesis focused on methodological aspects linked to the use of large datasets collected in unsupervised conditions, and provides useful insights on various aspects. Most notably, on the difficulty of determining PA levels in relative and absolute manners, as well as on the impact of alcohol intake and PA on HRV and sleep quality. The work builds incrementally on what is known from smaller studies, validating the use of data collected in unconstrained free living settings for the analysis of PA, alcohol intake and sleep and then takes this further by exploring aspects that could hardly be investigated in regular clinical or more controlled studies. I believe an important contribution here is the analysis of the relation between acute bouts of PA, overall fitness or habitual PA, and HRV as a marker of both parasympathetic activity in response to acute stressors (in relative terms) but also as a marker of health and potentially of fitness. Another important contribution is certainly the analysis of the difference in terms of acute responses depending on individual characteristics, for example recovery time in terms of HRV in response to alcohol intake or PA, and how these aspects can depend on a person’s age or BMI. These are all aspects very difficult to analyse or extrapolate from published literature given the small sample size or limited data. This work is of great relevance at this time, as there seem to be a gap between the large amounts of data collected by digital health companies and the methods and studies carried out in controlled research settings where often just a few subjects take part in such studies. 🇮🇹 Piccola intervista per gli amici italiani sulla variabilità cardiaca e l'utilizzo di HRV4Training per il canale YouTube di Massi Milani (2 volte vincitore di categoria della maratona di New York)
Perchè è importante misurarla? quando va fatta la misura? come utilizzare i valori? a chi consigliamo utilizzare questa tecnologia? ▶️ Grazie Massi! In this series of posts, I’ll provide an overview of best practices for your Heart Rate Variability (HRV) measurements (part 1), and tips on how to analyze and interpret your data over the short and long term (response to acute stressors, longer-term trends, etc. — in part 2). I’ll include quite a few case studies so that you can clearly see how you can too make use of the data (in part 3). Finally, the last post will cover a few misconceptions (utility with respect to subjective scores, non-training related use, strength training, etc. — part 4).
HRV is nothing new, and fairly simple to use effectively, but poor standardization and methodological inconsistencies make it difficult sometimes for people to make good use of the technology or understand what is reported in the scientific literature. Hopefully, these posts will help, but please feel free to ask questions should you have any doubts. You can find the other parts of this series at these links:
Pretty stoked to see HRV4Training mentioned by Los Angeles Football Club on the Apple store
“a state-of-the-art training program that leverages two affordable, easy-to-use apps available to pros and amateurs alike. This might be part of why LAFC is also one of the most successful MLS teams” Huge thank you to Gavin Benjafield for his words and support of our work, and congratulations on a great season last year I've recorded a podcast with Peter Glassford at the Consummate Athlete. We talked about HRV research, and in particular: guidelines for measurements in team sports (morning vs facilities), training adaptation (positive responses to increased load), HRV-guided training (when to hold back to improve performance) and menstrual cycle (HRV changes during the different phases). Enjoy.
I have been invited to give a talk about my research at Tampere University of Technology.
This was a nice opportunity for me to go over what is now more than ten years of work I have done in the field. I started back in 2009 developing hardware, firmware and software for wearable sensors, and then went into a PhD in data science applied to physical activity. Eventually, this work led me to the entrepreneurial route, starting companies with the goal of furthering our knowledge on complex relations between physiology, health and performance, thanks to large-scale studies and user generated data. This process brought me to my current goal, which is to empower the individual decision making process with accurate, transparent and effective tools such as HRV4Training. I tried to provide a decent overview in this talk, you can find the slides below or at this link. “While training prescription is one important part of the physiological puzzle, the other key component is in assessing the ability of the athlete to be able to tolerate training load. With this information at hand, we are able to make informed coaching decisions which will maintain an effective training stress balance. In support of this, we have partnered with HRV4Training to provide this insight and ensure that we remain at the forefront of athlete monitoring, vital to maximising the potential of our nation’s swimmers”
Couldn’t say it better myself. Thank you Swim Ireland for your continued support and all the best to coaches and athletes for the upcoming season and the Olympics. As part of my new master's in high-performance coaching at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, I had the opportunity to start a research project with the Dutch Triathlon Federation, using HRV4Training to monitor physiological adaptations to a training camp (more on this later, the goal is to publish our research, so I am sure we'll have more to report later during the year).
I am really grateful for this opportunity. One of the main reasons why I went back to school was the possibility to spend more time with people valuing our work and try to help them make better use of the technology, as opposed to spending most of my time coding (which I still enjoy!). I found an amazing environment at Dutch triathlon, with knowledgeable and humble coaches and athletes, and I can't wait to keep learning from them and to try to provide a little contribution to their work. Thank you for having me yesterday at the facilities during performance testing, and all the best for the upcoming season. Special thanks to Men's Health for featuring our work in January's issue. Great points on how training and lifestyle stressors pile up, and how using tools such as HRV4Training can allow athletes and coaches to better balance such stressors, improving health and performance in the long term.
I had a great time talking about stress, performance and HRV4Training with Matt Fox of Sweat Elite. You can find the podcast at this link.
Matt has spent quite some time in Kenya and Ethiopia as part of his work at Sweat Elite, and provides great insights on the lifestyle of elite athletes training there. We also discuss our own data during marathon training and the combined effect of training and lifestyle stressors on the body. You'll also learn a bit more about how HRV4Training started, recent research on HRV-guided training and the implications of a stressful lifestyle in terms of injury risk and performance. Alright, enjoy the podcast! In this post, I’d like to show how you can use a simple morning measurement of your resting physiology to gather useful information about your body’s response to training and lifestyle stressors.
In particular, we’ll look at two case studies using data from me and Alessandra in the two months leading to the New York City marathon, while dealing with additional non-training related stressors (work, university exams, etc.). We’ll see how stress piles up and how the contribution of training and lifestyle choices has a cumulative impact that is reflected in your body’s physiological state (your HRV). Hopefully, the case studies will be helpful to better understand how you can apply similar principles to your own case so that you can better manage stress towards improved health and performance. |
Marco ALtiniFounder of HRV4Training, Advisor @Oura , Guest Lecturer @VUamsterdam , Editor @ieeepervasive. PhD Data Science, 2x MSc: Sport Science, Computer Science Engineering. Runner Archives
May 2023
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