Your parasympathetic nervous system receives input from your organs, which can cause a decrease in your heart rate.

These include:Īnother reason for this great variance in heart rate is our nervous system.

There are a variety of factors that can influence or change your HRV metrics. However, being able to answer the question ‘what is HRV?’ can in fact provide you with important information about your overall health and the progression of your current training plan. This probably seems overly scientific and perhaps not that useful for the everyday amateur athlete. Within the same minute, you could have a 0.8-second interval between one set of heartbeats and then a 1.13-second interval between another set. So even if your heart rate is 60 beats per minute, the time between these beats is rarely one exact second. Also known as an R-R interval, this beat-to-beat interval variation is measured in milliseconds and can vary depending on a number of factors.įor instance, the interval between heartbeats is generally longer on your exhales and shorter when you inhale. While heart rate refers to the number of times your heart beats per minute, heart rate variability (HRV) measures the time between each heartbeat. So here is HRV explained – the how and why of tracking this metric. Whether you’re a runner, cyclist, or fitness enthusiast, it’s important to understand how heart rate variability can be used to your benefit. These days, it’s easy to check the health of your cardiovascular system and progress (or lack thereof) being made with your current training plan. Thankfully, advancements in technology have made receiving data like heart rate variability (HRV) more accessible than ever. Advanced metrics and data was once something only professional athletes with access to cutting edge technology and a team of medical experts were able to benefit from.

Heart rate analysis software