Before today’s rowing: I was actually happy to see the YELLOW – CAUTION indication for today’s “Morning Readiness” because yesterday and the day before yesterday I deliberately did some harder rowing than has been typical for two days in a row, to see if the reading would react accordingly on the EliteHRV app.
Happily, it seems to be doing what I hoped it would do. I feel fine this morning, but Heart Rate Variability shows that I’ve dipped into the “sympathetic” or “fight or flight” mode for the nervous system.
So I have a choice to either take it easy and recover today, or do another harder rowing session and see if tomorrow’s reading dips further into the Sympathetic zone. I’m tempted to row another session like yesterday’s and see if the reading will move further in the Sympathetic direction. But then again… I’d also like to see if it responds to a recovery day by moving back into the Green of the Parasympathetic.
Decision is: make this a recovery day with some Overdistance rowing. Without a training partner to set the pace today, I’ll have to make the choice myself. There are so many different ways to calculate what is the “ideal” effort level for recovery rowing. But the rowing I’m doing is definitely not an exact science so I will just choose a target heart rate zone which seems moderate and maintain rowing effort to keep HR in that zone once it climbs high enough to reach that zone.
I will aim for a slow climb toward a target heart rate of 133 BPM, plus or minus 5 beats. So that will be from 128 to 138. If tomorrow’s Morning Readiness gets back into the green, I’ll know that the approach and that particular HR zone was good for recovery.
After today’s rowing: So today’s rowing is done. It was 10K with a target heart rate of 133 BPM. A screen recording was made and it is in the process of uploading to YouTube now. In a few hours, it will be available for rowing-along-with, at this link: Indoor Rowing 10K Recovery 12102018
Happy rowing to you.