I recently had a chance to sit down and discuss all things HRV monitoring with James Darley of the Historic Performance Podcast. There’s also a number of great interviews in the podcast archives worth checking out.
Topics discussed:
- Background
- Physiological basis for HRV as a recovery status metric
- Preferred HRV parameter for athletes
- HRV recording methodology (position, conditions, time of day, etc.)
- Considerations for chosing the right HRV app for your situation
- Recent research
- Interpreting HRV data
Link to Podcast with show notes
HRVtraining 
Hi Andrew. Just wanted to say I really enjoyed the podcast. Very informative.
Where would you rank the BioForce App in the line of all of these HRV apps.
You mention seated being a good compromise between standing and supine testing. You say that the back is supported. What about a seated position that doesn’t have back support?
Thanks, David. I appreciate the feedback.
BioForce would be most comparable to ithlete. I prefer ithlete for a few reasons however: ithlete offers the Finger Sensor option; it has a shorter measurement durantion (55 sec); it has the built in Wellness Questionnaire; it offers the team portal interface; it’s a bit cheaper, etc.
In terms of validity and the HRV marker used, they are the same.
Seated with or without back support is fine. I’d be more concerned about consistency. Pick one and stick with it.
Hope this helped.
Thanks! That was helpful. I’ve used Bioforce for about a year and a half now. I wish they would implement some of those changes, but it’s pretty hard to want to switch to something else. I’m not sure how easy it is to get the data exported.