Resting Heart Rate and Heart Rate Variability (HRV): What’s the Difference? — Part 4, individual-level data

Blog post by Marco Altini

In part 1 of this series, I covered the basic physiology of heart rhythm regulation. In part 2, I discussed the technology required for these measurements, why some sensors can be trusted, and why others can be used just for resting heart rate, and not for HRV. In part 3, we started looking at the data, with an analysis of population-level differences in resting heart rate and HRV.
In this blog, we finally get to the most interesting aspect: individual-level data. Needless to say, both resting heart rate and HRV become a lot more useful when tracked over time within individuals, and this is exactly what I’ll be showing here. I’ll also try to highlight some of the differences between these two parameters, so that you can better understand what the data means when tracked in response to strong acute stressors (e.g. training, sickness, alcohol intake, the menstrual cycle) and in the longer run (e.g. changes in fitness).

You can find the blog, here.