This article was written for the FreelapUSA site. The intro is posted below. You can follow the link for the full article. Thanks to Christopher Glaeser from Freelap for inviting my contribution as I’ve found this site to be a great resource.
Interpreting HRV Trends in Athletes: High Isn’t Always Good and Low Isn’t Always Bad
Heart rate variability (HRV) monitoring has become increasingly popular in both competitive and recreational sports and training environments due to the development of smartphone apps and other affordable field tools. Though the concept of HRV is relatively simple, its interpretation can be quite complex. As a result, considerable confusion surrounds HRV data interpretation. I believe much of this confusion can be attributed to the overly simplistic guidelines that have been promoted for the casual-end, non-expert user.
In the context of monitoring fatigue or training status in athletes, a common belief is that high HRV is good and low HRV is bad. Or, in terms of observing the overall trend, increasing HRV trends are good, indicative of positive adaptation or increases in fitness while decreasing trends are bad, indicative of fatigue accumulation or “overtraining” and performance decrements. In this article I address the common notions of both acute and longitudinal trend interpretation, and discuss why and when these interpretations may or may not be appropriate. We will briefly explore where these common interpretations or “rules” have come from within the literature, and then discuss some exceptions to these rules.
HRVtraining 
Reblogged this on dr3do and commented:
Though the concept of HRV is relatively simple, its interpretation can be quite complex. As a result, considerable confusion surrounds HRV data interpretation. I believe much of this confusion can be attributed to the overly simplistic guidelines that have been promoted for the casual-end, non-expert user.