HRV on Vertical

Jacobus

Hello all,
I am 57 years old and exercise 4-5 times a week, run a sub 4 hour marathon at my leisure, but only have a very low score of 13ms on average…
I usually feel good, full of energy. But I find the HRV value a bit disturbing now that I see yours.
I take all the wisdom that comes from the internet with a grain of salt, but it doesn’t sit well with me.
Be sure to call the doctor for clarity.

Frederick Rochette

I’m 49 years old and have a fairly low heart rate (under 40 beats at rest). HRV analysis works well for me and gives me information that’s fairly consistent with my state of fitness and lifestyle.
The problem is that the data is not identical between SA and Vertical.

pilleus

With the Vertical I never reached a value over 29. Regarding the range or delta of different nights the low values change as in every other app measuring the hrv.

My average hrv value is 42 over the years (63 years old, not lazy, captured with Garmin Connect).

To interprete the different values with different watches and apps you must know the scenery behind the measuring of the heart rate and the used algorithms.

I think this information is not available in Suunto’s strategy to display the nightly average of the hrv.

I attach two pictures of my hrv (last night, pic 1 Garmin Forerunner, pic 2 TicWatch 5 Pro and project Stila). You can see a similar progression of the measured values. The absolute values are different. But in both graphs I get an average value of 37 ms, which is a bit low as usual after yesterday’s hike in the snow. Although the absolute values are higher in the second graph.

In the third image (project Stila), the properties of the measured values from picture 2 (last night) are broken down, which shows how complicated the evaluation actually is.

Ultimately, it is just an indication that, in addition to your own feeling, can provide an indication of the scope and intensity of the upcoming training. I wouldn’t overestimate that.

Marton Attila

Hi, I’m 34 years old. My average heart rate when I’m sleeping sits at 55-60 and minimum 53-55.
This is my HRV range 52-55 recorded for over 2 weeks. I think it works well if you compare values to the HR when sleeping.

The lower your heart rate when sleeping the higher your HRV. I’ve seen 100ms + HRV these guys are machines very fit athletes. It’s as simple as it is. For average peep like me this is it.

@Frederick-Rochette said in HRV on Vertical:

I’m 49 years old and have a fairly low heart rate (under 40 beats at rest). HRV analysis works well for me and gives me information that’s fairly consistent with my state of fitness and lifestyle.

Jesus Christ! Your HRV it’s ridiculously high for you age. Congrats!

Frederick Rochette

@Marton-Attila Thanks! I rarely stay on my sofa

Ivan De Rasis

@Marton-Attila la mia ha una media di 41 MS…com’è??

isazi

This reminds me the Whoop reddit channel, people comparing their HRV as it was something that should be the same for everyone.

Higher is (generally) better, but each person has a different baseline (therefore the reason to compare to your own baseline and not a fixed value), and it is not something that can be trained indefinitely, it has a genetic component.

Now the people that see very low values and have checked with other devices that do exactly the same (average over sleep tracked time), with both devices recording the same amount of sleep too, may have found that one device works better for them then the other, something that OHR is very prone to due to technology. For me Vertical/Race/S9PP and Oura ring give the same sleep HRV, plus or minus a couple of milliseconds.

@isazi said in HRV on Vertical:

This reminds me the Whoop reddit channel, people comparing their HRV as it was something that should be the same for everyone.

@Marton-Attila well also “regular” people can have high HRV, it’s also genetics. My girlfriend has a HRV of about 90 and she’s not a super trained athlete. Her resting HR is super low though. So it is highly individual. Imho it makes no sense to compare it with others, or even “table values”. What matters are trends over time for each individual. Just my two cents

Marton Attila

@isazi I have literally 0 (zero) interest in any HRV competition. I don’t know why or how I made you believe that. It’s just a random screenshot to show that HRV on this watch really works well for me considering my fitness/level condition. That’s all.

And I agree on everything else you just said! I’m not that black and white more like gradient, haha!

Stefan Kersting

Yes a lot is individual. When skiing with my buddies they are laughing at me because of my high max HR. I am 47 and when pushing myself I can have a HR of 194 (measured with belt). I was litt worried about that because usually you calculate max HR = 220-age. And that does not work for me. I read something about that this formula is not up to date any more and so I was less worried about my HR. I think it is the same with the HRV.

isazi

@Marton-Attila was a general comment after reading for a while, nothing about you in particular, sorry if I made you feel that way

@Stefan-Kersting welcome to the club. I have a quite high HR and when I played soccer I measured over 200 a few times, with belt, but until today I am not sure if that was really true, or just a glitch will never know I guess.

Stefan Kersting

@tomasbartko do not know if 194 was true, but it was not urealistic either. In any case, even it is some prosent wrong the HR does not fit in the formula

@tomasbartko I hope you are doing the right heart stress checks. In the past I have had episodes of tachycardia on exertion only to find that I had minor problems and was suggested me to quit mountain running. only god knows how much I ran with the holter…

mikekoski490

@isazi This morning my Suunto HRV morning report score was 16. This would indicate serious illness.

That said, same morning score via an app and Polar H10, was 48.

I was asking if there could be an issue for some with low scores, as it seems very incorrect, and my point was to check other sources and not panic.

Seems like this is similar to the OHR experience. HRV works for some, and currently not accurate for others.

pilleus

@mikekoski490 said in HRV on Vertical:

This morning my Suunto HRV morning report score was 16. This would indicate serious illness.

That said, same morning score via an app and Polar H10, was 48.

Can you say which values the app uses for calculation? If 5 minutes are spent on this, then it is an average while awake, you are not allowed to move.

Unless you know which values Suunto uses for the calculation, you cannot make any comparisons. It makes sense to only measure the values in the deep sleep phase, as you don’t move during that time. If the sleep recording is not correct (e. g. the deep sleep phases are missing), the values are also incorrect.

So it depends on a correct measurement of the sleep in the night.

The first thing to notice is that the HRV curve closely corresponds to the amount of physical activity. It gets much higher in the light sleep phase, partly due to the simple fact of the body turning and tossing more intensely, partly due to internal processes related to the REM phase.

The parts that we should focus on instead are the lower values during the deep sleep phases when the body is completely still. The values then represent the natural variability of a free-running heart. These valleys are typically lower when one goes to bed very tired (a tough day at work, heavy exercise), and they get higher during the night as the body and the mind get refreshed.

That’s the problem with different systems and algorithms that different values come out that are not the same.

Swaddy61

@mikekoski490 As I also have a Polar H10 belt I downloaded the Elite App and conducted their HRV test. Now, it is late afternoon and I have had a pretty busy / active day (although without a gym session etc), and it has given an HRV value of 48ms, vs the SV figure of 19ms overnight last night. I am not ‘competing’ for the best HRV value (I wouldn’t win anyway!), just trying to alert Suunto to the fact that their HRV results do not appear to be consistently accurate!

As a reasonaby fit 62 year old (gym 3+ times / week, other activities most days, resting HR 56 bpm, BP of 119/78), I am inclined to believe that the Elite value (via the H10 belt) is likely more accurate. I will for sure, track it over the following days, and continue to compare to the SV figures. If the two values trend similarly, then we will know it is an offset issue, but if there is no correlation, then (probably) the SV’s figures are to be ignored completely, which would be a shame on an $800 watch!

Interestingly, the HR value of the SV (OHR) is within 1 bpm of the H10 at the same time, and the SV tracks my sleep with about 85% accuracy, both of which some people report as being far off their actual figures. So it seems it is the HRV algorithm which works better for some people than others - which is strange, as you would think it is a pretty simple, measured, metric?

I tried wearing the watch tighter last night, to see if that helped, but got my lowest HRV value!

Likewise, I find the SpO2 figures for the SV to be very variable - sometimes as low as 82% (quick, call an ambulance!), but ‘usually’ between 95 - 100%, which were the figures I generally got with my Coros Apex Pro.

Other than that, so far I am very pleased with the SV Ti Solar, although hoping the battery guage settles down over a few more charge / use cycles (I won’t get 20 days on a charge at the current discharge rate, with only about 2 hours of GPS a week so far - my 3 year old Coros was still managing > 17 days with the same usage).

So, a few more days of testing, and I will report back!

mikekoski490

@pilleus Hi. The ‘values’ would be the same on both Suunto and the HRV app: my age/height/weight/gender etc.

Polar does the same morning static test, using their HRM, for their Polar watches (or at least used to back when I had a Polar Vantage), which is why I got the brainstorm for using an HRV app with the H10.

From checking online, an average HRV score for my age is about 50ms (+/-). 2 different HRV apps now over 3 days have given me an average of 48. I didn’t see any studies that say if you take an ‘overnight’ HRV test, an HRV score of 15ms is fine - on the contrary, it was stressing me out!

So, for me, HRV is not accurate on Suunto yet, but I understand it might be for others. I was just adding my experience. I would prefer to rely on one app, SA, for everything, but for now I’ll prefer to use the Elite HRV app and H10 for this measurement. I do find HRV info informative, and again, not looking at a single score, but trends. Thanks!

@robis Yes I do and also went recently. Everything is okay, I am healthy