Reading HRV without the jargon
Heart rate variability is the single most useful readiness signal you have, and the most misread. Here is what it is in plain language, and why one night rarely tells the whole story.
HRV is the variation in time between consecutive heartbeats. A healthy, well-recovered body produces slightly irregular spacing between beats; a stressed or fatigued one produces more metronomic, even spacing. Vector Connect measures it overnight and reports it in milliseconds.
What the numbers mean
As a rough orientation, an overnight HRV of 100 ms or more reflects strong recovery, 50 to 99 ms is a normal range, and under 50 ms suggests an impaired or strained state. But the absolute number matters far less than where you sit relative to your own baseline.
Baselines beat single nights
The platform compares your recent HRV to two rolling baselines: a 7-day average that captures your current state and a 30-day average that captures your normal. A single low night is usually just a late meal, alcohol, or a hard session catching up with you. A sustained drop is the signal worth acting on.
- A drop of around 20 percent below baseline is worth watching.
- A drop of around 30 percent or more is a strong sign the body is under real strain.
- When the day-to-day spread gets unusually wide (high variability in the HRV itself), the body is often unsettled even if the average looks fine.
The practical takeaway
Do not chase a single night's HRV. Look at the direction of travel over three to seven days. If HRV is trending down while training load is climbing, that is the early warning to ease off, days before it shows up as poor performance or injury.