Here’s a look at our latest study in collaboration with Fabio Nakamura and colleagues, now in press with JSCR (Abstract below). In this study, HRV was recorded as a team at the training facility, not immediately after waking. This is the approach that many coaches are interested in using given the issue with compliance when trying to get athletes to perform HRV measures on their own at home after waking. Controlled and supervised measures at the facility appear promising, at least in these high level athletes.

It’s important to understand that autonomic activity is constantly making adjustments to physical, chemical and perceived psychological stimuli. Thus, HRV is inherently not the most reliable metric. However, training status/fitness appear to have a strong affect on day to day variation in HRV. More fit athletes recover faster/tolerate training better and thus tend to show less deviation from baseline compared to less fit athletes, of which will experience much greater homeostatic disruption from training and greater day to day variation. I strongly believe that the amount of daily fluctuation (i.e., lnRMSSDcv) is a very useful indication of fitness, stress and training adaptation.

We currently have a paper in production looking at the effect of training status on HRV. In the mean time, compare the trends below of an Olympic level and a conference level athlete, both short-distance swimmers (similar age and physical characteristics) across 4 consecutive weeks of training.

Intra- and inter-day reliability of ultra-short-term heart rate variability in rugby union players.

The aim of this study was to examine the intra-day and inter-day reliability of ultra-short-term vagal-related heart rate variability (HRV) in elite rugby union players. Forty players from the Brazilian National Rugby Team volunteered to participate in this study. The natural log of the root mean square of successive RR interval differences (lnRMSSD) assessments were performed on four different days. HRV was assessed twice (intra-day reliability) on the first day and once per day on the following three days (inter-day reliability). The RR interval recordings were obtained from 2-min recordings using a portable heart rate monitor. The relative reliability of intra- and inter-day lnRMSSD measures were analyzed using the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). The typical error of measurement (absolute reliability) of intra- and inter-day lnRMSSD assessments were analyzed using the coefficient of variation (CV). Both intra-day (ICC = 0.96; CV = 3.99%) and inter-day (ICC = 0.90; CV = 7.65%) measures were highly reliable. The ultra-short-term lnRMSSD is a consistent measure for evaluating elite rugby union players, in both intra- and inter-day settings. This study provides further validity to using this shortened method in practical field conditions with highly trained team sports athletes.

Full text on Research Gate