Let ithlete guide your training by Phil Mosley - sports scientist, journalist & athlete

Make no mistake, monitoring your heart rate variability is one of the most significant training concepts of recent times. It could potentially be your secret weapon – the one thing that differentiates you from your competitors. It is one step beyond what top athletes like Paula Radcliffe do when they diligently record their waking heart rate and use it to decide whether or not they should train. I rate it up there with heart-rate based training and Power Meters for cycling in terms of it’s importance. But for once, it’s something that doesn’t break the bank or require a 6-inch instruction manual. Using an i-pod application is inexpensive, simple to use and time effective.

Remember, to improve your speed, strength or endurance you need to train hard and then recover. It is during your recovery periods that your body ‘super-compensates’ - it repairs itself, plus it a bit more on top. It’s the ‘bit more on top’ that gives you improvements in performance. If you train too hard and recover too little you body won’t super-compensate; instead it will just enter a cycle of fatigue and breakdown. Similarly, train too lightly and your body won’t need to super-compensate, because its already perfectly adept at handling your training regime. Just to complicate matters, there are also factors of every day life that you need to consider too. Things like stress, tiredness and illness all need to be factored into your training decisions. It’s not easy to get the balance right.

So, in order to keep getting, fitter, faster and stronger, you need to get the training/recovery balance spot-on. And that is where ithlete comes in. It allows you to listen closely to your body so that you can make the right training decisions. Since using it, I have been less rigid in my training planning. I record my HRV score each morning and use it to help me decide what training I should do. I already have a good idea, but it helps me to confirm whether my planned session will be truly beneficial or not. If the ithlete gives me a red light I tend to take a rest day. Seeing a red light and a low HRV score gives me more confidence in my decision to take some recovery too – something many athletes feel bad about doing.  On the other hand, if the ithlete shows a green light and a good HRV score, it gives me a motivational boost to know that I can push hard and that my body is up for it. I usually do high intensity work on these days. It means that every training decision I make is the right one for my body, so I am never under-training or over-training.

I don’t know how fast people will be to adopt HRV training. Maybe it’s not an easy concept for some people to grasp? What I do know is that this presents the rest of us with a great opportunity to gain the competitive edge and get a better insight into what makes our bodies tick.

Phil Mosley is a sports scientist, journalist, coach and a successful athlete, having competed for Great Britain