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I've had a couple of support questions on interpreting the results, so thought it might be helpful to explain what the chart & daily change indicators mean for anyone that's in doubt:

1. Looking first at the Chart, the fat blue line is your average baseline of all your daily HRV values.
2. It is the daily changes in your morning HRV measurement from this baseline that ithlete uses to give you personalised fatigue & recovery information. Basically, if your daily value is close to the average - you're OK to train normally. This will also give you a white line joining the daily values and indicates that there is nothing special to note.
3. If, as a result of training or other life stresses, your body is experiencing significant fatigue, then your HRV will be lower that the baseline, leading to an amber warning on both the Daily Change indicator and an amber line segment on the chart.
4. If you have recovered by the following day, then the line segment will turn white again, and the Daily Change indicator will be a neutral blue colour, so you are OK to train normally again.
5. If on the other hand, the fatigue you are experiencing continues to affect your body, then the Daily Change & line segment will both turn red, indicating that you should really take a rest day.
6. You can also get ambers & reds from late nights, alcohol & work stress - your body reacts to them all the same (!).
7. There is one other situation where you can get a red daily change indicator, and that is if your resting heart rate has suddenly lowered significantly. This could indicate a form of parasympathetic overtraining, where your body is really exhausted. It's a condition that's difficult to diagnose reliably, so if you see a red daily change, always ask yourself if you have been overdoing it.
8. Finally, if you experience very good recovery from one day to the next, you may see a green line segment & daily change indicator.

In a future post, I'll cover the interpretation of the weekly & monthly change indicators in more depth.

Hi Jack. The weekly and monthly change indicators are really just a summary of the changes in the blue moving average line on the chart over the last week and month respectively. You should be able to see that the number on the indicator (positive or negative) reflects the change in level of the average line on the chart.
In your case, although your values from yesterday to today are fairly stable, there has been a negative trend over the past week. This can be caused by an increase in volume or intensity of training. By coincidence, my weekly is also red today, as a result of making the transition from winter base training (that I posted about earlier in 'ithlete and periodisation') to some hard group rides and solo intervals this week. The message I have taken is that I may have overdone it with 3 intensive sessions in the past week. I have heavy legs, feel tired & will definitely take tomorrow off from training! A significant decline over the week could also be caused by lack of sleep or work stress, because our bodies react to mental & physical stress in similar ways. I will follow up with a more detailed post on using the weekly & monthly indicators soon.

Just thought I would post a tip I learned last weekend. I did my usual group ride of 50miles on Saturday and then went round to some good friends (who are in the catering business) for dinner. For once I was not driving, so allowed myself several glasses of various delicious wines, and it became quite a late night. Next morning, I stood up a little shaky at 9:30 and did my morning measure. 60. Oh dear, that's a fall of -9 compared to the previous day and a definite warning! I decided not to try and go on, but went back to bed for an hour. At 10:30, I took my reading again. 66. Felt much better and realised what a difference an extra hour in bed can make when your body needs it.
I've been using ithlete every day for over a year and I'm still learning new things about my body. In this case, when my hangover has receded sufficiently for me to face the day!

Hi Andy

A study by Hibino et al (1997, Journal of Nutrition) showed that 240mg caffeine in coffee reliably increased parasympathetic HRV (the kind measured by ithlete) between 15 and 45 mins after ingestion. That is consistent with my own findings, where I notice a ~3 pt increase 20mins after my morning latte.

What this study found, however, was that parasympathetic HRV was back down close to control levels after 1hr. So I don't think it was the reason for your 5pt drop. A possible explanation is that 1hr after waking, your sympathetic nervous system is on the go, shifting the autonomic balance more in that direction and causing a reduction in the ithlete measure.

That's why it's important to do the measure at the same time every day if possible to give the most sensitivity to changes in your physical stress/recovery levels.