Latest / Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40 / What Your HRV Numbers Actually Mean (Resonance Theory) | Ep 288

Transcript

What Your HRV Numbers Actually Mean (Resonance Theory) | Ep 288 · Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40

• 0:01
  Philip Pape: you've seen those HRV numbers pop up on your fitness tracker or aura ring 25 one day, 65 the next.
• 0:08
  Philip Pape: Maybe you've heard higher is better, but you're wondering what the numbers really mean for your health and performance.
• 0:14
  Philip Pape: Today I am getting into why HRV metrics only tell half the story.
• 0:18
  Philip Pape: Using a principle called resonance theory the same science that explains why bridges collapse and musical instruments sing You'll discover how your body's natural rhythms affect everything from stress to recovery.
• 0:31
  Philip Pape: By the end of this episode, you'll understand not just what your HRV numbers mean, but how to actually use them to optimize your training, sleep and overall well-being.
• 0:52
  Philip Pape: Welcome to Wits and Weights, the show that helps you build a strong, healthy physique using evidence, engineering and efficiency.
• 0:58
  Philip Pape: I'm your host, Philip Pape, and today we're uncovering what heart rate variability, or HRV, really tells us about our bodies by looking at the science of resonance.
• 1:09
  Philip Pape: I want to give a special shout out to Aubrey in our Wits and Weights Physique University, who asked a question related to HRV and she said quote I am not clear on what good, normal, bad numbers might be for HRV.
• 1:21
  Philip Pape: So not only will we answer that question today, but you'll learn why focusing solely on those numbers might be for HRV.
• 1:25
  Philip Pape: So not only will we answer that question today, but you'll learn why focusing solely on those numbers might be missing the bigger picture of what's happening in your body.
• 1:29
  Philip Pape: Before we dig into HRV and resonance theory, I want to let you know that if you have questions like Aubrey did, and you're not already in one of our communities and you want to have a topic covered on the show, you can head over to witsandweightscom slash question witsandweightscom slash question link in the show notes as well, where you can submit your question to me.
• 1:50
  Philip Pape: You'll get a personal reply.
• 1:52
  Philip Pape: I will answer your question, usually within a couple days max, and then you'll get featured on a future episode and I'll even give you a shout out if you prefer.
• 2:01
  Philip Pape: All right, so I want to start with a concept of resonance as the background and in the world of engineering, resonance occurs when a system vibrates at its natural frequency.
• 2:13
  Philip Pape: Now, every physical object has a natural frequency.
• 2:15
  Philip Pape: That's the rate at which it wants to oscillate when it's disturbed.
• 2:20
  Philip Pape: So if you strike a tuning fork and then it vibrates at its specific frequency, it's going to create a pure musical note, right?
• 2:27
  Philip Pape: People can use that to tune instruments, for example, If you're pushing a child on a swing at just the right timing and then they go higher and higher.
• 2:36
  Philip Pape: This harmonious timing creates what we call resonance.
• 2:39
  Philip Pape: The opposite happens when frequencies clash right, A marching army is going to break step when they cross a bridge because their synchronized footsteps could match the bridge's natural frequency and cause it to collapse.
• 2:53
  Philip Pape: I don't know if you knew that this isn't just theoretical.
• 2:55
  Philip Pape: It actually happened to the Broughton Suspension Bridge.
• 2:58
  Philip Pape: I think I'd say it pronounced Broughton Broughton in 1831, when 74 soldiers marched across it.
• 3:04
  Philip Pape: Broughton Broughton in 1831, when 74 soldiers marched across it.
• 3:08
  Philip Pape: And you may know the famous Tacoma Bridge that tore apart as well.
• 3:09
  Philip Pape: Kind of an example of frequencies gone wrong.
• 3:13
  Philip Pape: And this is where it gets interesting when it comes to health and fitness.
• 3:15
  Philip Pape: Your body operates on natural frequencies as well.
• 3:18
  Philip Pape: Your heart beats around 60 times a minute at rest.
• 3:22
  Philip Pape: These are averages, okay.
• 3:24
  Philip Pape: You breathe about 12 to 20 times a minute.
• 3:27
  Philip Pape: These are not random numbers.
• 3:29
  Philip Pape: They are your body's natural oscillations, and when these systems are synchronized, they create what engineers would call constructive interference, which means it amplifies their effects.
• 3:40
  Philip Pape: When they're fighting each other, you get destructive interference, and so this is why HRV numbers alone like let's be honest just about any metric by itself isn't going to tell the full story.
• 3:52
  Philip Pape: If you have an HRV of 50, it might be fantastic for you but very concerning for someone else, and so it's not about hitting a magic number right.
• 4:02
  Philip Pape: In this case at least, it's about how well your body systems are resonating together.
• 4:08
  Philip Pape: So I want to address Aubrey's question directly about interpreting HRV numbers.
• 4:13
  Philip Pape: I don't want to remain theoretical here.
• 4:14
  Philip Pape: For you guys, your HRV can range anywhere from below 20 to over 200 milliseconds.
• 4:22
  Philip Pape: The crucial thing here that I've already alluded to is that these numbers are highly individual.
• 4:27
  Philip Pape: I have clients with average HRVs in the 30s who are incredibly fit, and others with numbers in the hundreds who might struggle with recovery.
• 4:34
  Philip Pape: So think of HRV kind of like your body's check engine light as opposed to your speedometer right, the absolute number matters less than how it changes from your baseline.
• 4:46
  Philip Pape: So when you understand something like resonance theory, this makes sense.
• 4:51
  Philip Pape: Just like the tuning fork has its specific frequency, your body has its natural rhythm.
• 4:56
  Philip Pape: So three key things affect this natural rhythm your baseline HRV.
• 5:02
  Philip Pape: The first one is age.
• 5:03
  Philip Pape: Hrv generally decreases as you get older.
• 5:05
  Philip Pape: Okay, and like many things when it comes to age, my big caveat here is a lot of things that happen as we age are actually tied to other variables like a loss of muscle mass, a loss of fitness, lower activity, higher stress, and we need to make sure to separate the two.
• 5:23
  Philip Pape: But generally, if you live the average typical american's lifestyle, which is fairly sedentary not at all what we are going for here a lot of these things will just simply get worse with age.
• 5:33
  Philip Pape: But we're trying to defy age, aren't we anyway?
• 5:35
  Philip Pape: That's age.
• 5:36
  Philip Pape: The second of the three is your fitness level, so it usually increases with cardiovascular fitness.
• 5:42
  Philip Pape: Okay, and remember, cardiovascular fitness isn't just from cardio.
• 5:46
  Philip Pape: In fact, it's predominantly because you are generally active, you walk a lot, you move and you lift weights.
• 5:52
  Philip Pape: It's not just because you are a runner or endurance athlete.
• 5:55
  Philip Pape: In fact, for many people like that, they actually have issues with stress.
• 6:00
  Philip Pape: Keeping that in mind, Number three is your genetics, and that's kind of your starting point, and that's why the absolute number isn't as important as you seeing your trend over time and then making the changes to nudge it in the direction you want.
• 6:10
  Philip Pape: Now, daily factors can then push you away from your baseline and this is where it's kind of a chicken and egg.
• 6:18
  Philip Pape: It's like do you want to react to the HRV or do you simply want to recognize that what you do is going to affect your HRV and change your behaviors?
• 6:28
  Philip Pape: I mean, I would argue they all work together, but just keeping that in mind, poor sleep is the first one, and big one, that is going to knock your systems out of sync and going to cause your HIV to drop.
• 6:40
  Philip Pape: Alcohol huge disruptor to your natural frequency, Anybody who has an aura ring.
• 6:45
  Philip Pape: If you eat too late or you have too much alcohol, you're going to see your HRV be worse the next day or overnight.
• 6:51
  Philip Pape: High stress that creates dissonance in your autonomic nervous system and then even things like room temperature can affect how well these resonate together.
• 6:59
  Philip Pape: It's why we talk about having a really calm, dark, cool environment for sleep.
• 7:04
  Philip Pape: So if you want to actually use the information because I know a lot of you you see it and you're like okay, that's great, what do I do?
• 7:09
  Philip Pape: Instead of chasing just a higher number, which was the chicken and egg thing I mentioned I want you to look for patterns.
• 7:17
  Philip Pape: Okay, Patterns First.
• 7:19
  Philip Pape: You're going to establish your baseline.
• 7:20
  Philip Pape: So you've got to.
• 7:21
  Philip Pape: You've got to be tracking your HIV somehow with some sort of wearable over about two to three weeks and you notice that many things that we track when it comes to human body.
• 7:28
  Philip Pape: It's like you've got to do it for at least two to three weeks.
• 7:31
  Philip Pape: It just takes time to understand these things.
• 7:33
  Philip Pape: Um, so, two to three weeks of your normal routine, your normal living.
• 7:36
  Philip Pape: You're going to track your HRV during sleep, because that's when external factors are adding noise to the system, adding extra variables.
• 7:44
  Philip Pape: Hrv during sleep is a really reliable indicator from a day-to-day trend, and then you're going to look for significant deviations, For example, a sudden drop of 20% or more below your baseline.
• 7:56
  Philip Pape: That usually says that you have excessive stress or poor recovery.
• 8:00
  Philip Pape: That's a sudden drop.
• 8:02
  Philip Pape: And do we always have to be worried about that?
• 8:04
  Philip Pape: Eh, I mean, if you know why, if you, if you, if you, you know, got drunk last night, then that could explain it.
• 8:11
  Philip Pape: Or if you had like an extra 2000 calories late at night, right, and you know what causes it again, chicken and egg it's like, okay, I know that happened, move on, Um, but it's good information to know why that the HRV dropped is because your stress level just went up because of what you just did.
• 8:26
  Philip Pape: So it's a good way to correlate those things.
• 8:28
  Philip Pape: That's a sudden drop.
• 8:30
  Philip Pape: Now a consistent downward trend over several weeks.
• 8:34
  Philip Pape: That could indicate, for example, that your training load is too high.
• 8:39
  Philip Pape: Maybe you're overtraining and you're getting fatigued, assuming nothing else is pushing it up like some new source of chronic stress or some anomalous situation like travel.
• 8:49
  Philip Pape: But again, that's why it's good to understand, it's good to take these measurements when you're in your normal routine so that you can isolate variables.
• 8:58
  Philip Pape: Multiple days of elevated HRV actually could be a good thing.
• 9:01
  Philip Pape: It could indicate that you're adapting really well to training.
• 9:03
  Philip Pape: It could also be that you just improved your sleep, Like I just started using a new pillow sleeping on my back.
• 9:10
  Philip Pape: And I'm monitoring my HRV.
• 9:11
  Philip Pape: It's only been a week.
• 9:12
  Philip Pape: I've seen it go up, I've seen it go down.
• 9:14
  Philip Pape: I don't know if the trend has is is has moved in one direction or not yet, Cause you can't tell just from a few data points, just like can't with scale weight or anything else.
• 9:22
  Philip Pape: And then if, however, if, however, you have large day-to-day swings, so we're talking about huge ups and downs.
• 9:30
  Philip Pape: Okay, and this is different than scale weight, because the scale weight, that's actually pretty normal With HRV it could mean that your body's natural rhythms are being disrupted somehow and that itself, even though it may not deviate to a certain value.
• 9:43
  Philip Pape: The fact that it's fluctuating so much could be a red flag.
• 9:46
  Philip Pape: So, going back to resonance theory, where this becomes practical, and remember the analogy of pushing the kid on the swing just at the right time, well, you can kind of work with your body's natural frequency to optimize your HRV and if, for those of you who caught my episode with Dr Peter Martoni, he actually talked about the fact that if your HRV is higher and you're adapting well and handling stress well, it also could represent a more distinct gap between your parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems.
• 10:18
  Philip Pape: There's a healthy separation and distinction between the two.
• 10:21
  Philip Pape: They're not overlapping and conflicting with each other.
• 10:24
  Philip Pape: So it kind of goes with this whole frequency resonance thing where we don't want them to clash, we want them to actually be more in sync and not interfering with each other.
• 10:32
  Philip Pape: So if you want to optimize your HRV, a lot of this has to do with stress, but it's also recovery and training.
• 10:39
  Philip Pape: It's the things that you're doing in between the recovery.
• 10:43
  Philip Pape: So, breathing practices you know we'll get talked about a lot, but they're they're actually kind of underrated.
• 10:48
  Philip Pape: I think even just taking 30 or 60 seconds to stop and breathe it could be very helpful.
• 10:54
  Philip Pape: Um, people with anxiety, whether it's chronic or acute bouts of anxiety, find that breathing practices are extremely helpful because it forces you to become mindful and it also makes your body feel safe.
• 11:06
  Philip Pape: It feels like, hey, there's not a threat here, because I'm able to focus on breathing like this.
• 11:10
  Philip Pape: How would that even happen if I was under threat?
• 11:12
  Philip Pape: Therefore, activate the parasympathetic nervous system and relax.
• 11:17
  Philip Pape: And it's like six breaths per minute tends to match your cardiovascular resonant frequency.
• 11:25
  Philip Pape: So there is this theory that breathing in sync with your heart rate can be helpful.
• 11:30
  Philip Pape: Now, don't overthink it.
• 11:32
  Philip Pape: This could stress you out.
• 11:33
  Philip Pape: Just using a typical like box breathing technique, chances are your heart itself will also match your breathing, so it kind of works that way.
• 11:41
  Philip Pape: There's also your training.
• 11:42
  Philip Pape: So some people are actually using the aura ring data to schedule their workouts when they know the HRV is at or above baseline.
• 11:51
  Philip Pape: Now the problem, the only problem I have with this one is like, if you wait till the day of and you wake up and you're like, oh, my HRV is good today, Now I'm going to train, I'm not, as I'm not a big fan of that, because I'd rather you have a training schedule that is preplanned and sometimes, when your HRV isn't great.
• 12:05
  Philip Pape: You can still train really well and actually you might need the training to kind of get you out of the funk, so to speak, and help you out.
• 12:17
  Philip Pape: Um, it's just more of the intense training where you might be dealing with things that are exacerbating your existing fatigue.
• 12:20
  Philip Pape: I think it's good to pay attention.
• 12:21
  Philip Pape: And if your HRV is like totally shot because you just like whatever you did last night was not pretty normal routine, I mean yes, then you've got to consider seriously whether it's going to be most effective to train.
• 12:31
  Philip Pape: But for a lot of people I'll tell you what just going by feel is not always the best indicator of how effectively you're going to train or whether it's good for you.
• 12:39
  Philip Pape: I'm sorry to say so.
• 12:40
  Philip Pape: I usually recommend people just get in the gym, warm up, see how you feel and, you know, modify the lifts if you need to like, if low back fatigue is an issue or whatnot, but don't necessarily let your HRV tell you what to do.
• 12:54
  Philip Pape: And then recovery protocols as well.
• 12:58
  Philip Pape: Hrv is a good indicator of how you're recovering and so if you are pushing or backing off, or you're in fat loss or you're in a gaining phase, it's kind of nice to see the patterns and correlate them with how hard you're pushing and how much you're recovering, you might find that like an extra training day in between your training weeks, like two days off instead of one day off, for example, is exactly what you need to get your HRV to have a much better trend over time.
• 13:26
  Philip Pape: But it's gonna take a while to kind of figure that out.
• 13:29
  Philip Pape: So I guess my point with this whole episode is to not really overthink HRV and use it as more of a lagging indicator of the stuff you're doing.
• 13:37
  Philip Pape: Maybe it'll give you some surprise insights.
• 13:40
  Philip Pape: A lot of times it's not really surprising why it's lower.
• 13:43
  Philip Pape: But if you're trying to tweak something to improve recovery or your training, adaptation or stress, it's great to have a baseline and then see like three weeks later oh yes, it actually improved.
• 13:54
  Philip Pape: So it is likely that what I did helped me.
• 13:57
  Philip Pape: Again, the only caveat there is if it didn't improve markedly, that doesn't mean it's not beneficial.
• 14:03
  Philip Pape: Whatever you're doing, it could take longer to reveal itself through your HRV, or it may not really reveal itself through your HRV, and that's why I don't want you to put too much stock in this one number.
• 14:15
  Philip Pape: All right, so tying this all together, this principle of resonance.
• 14:19
  Philip Pape: It doesn't just explain HRV.
• 14:21
  Philip Pape: It actually it reveals why certain practices feel almost magical.
• 14:27
  Philip Pape: All right, so I mentioned box breathing.
• 14:29
  Philip Pape: That is a technique used by Navy SEALs and most people think it works because you're you know, quote unquote calming down.
• 14:36
  Philip Pape: Right, You're calming down, but there's actually a lot more to it.
• 14:39
  Philip Pape: There's science behind it, because when you breathe in for four seconds, you hold for four, out for four and hold for four.
• 14:46
  Philip Pape: You are creating a 12-second cycle and that is five breaths per minute.
• 14:51
  Philip Pape: That is actually remarkably close to the resonant frequency of six breaths per minute I mentioned earlier.
• 14:57
  Philip Pape: So I kind of buried the lead back then.
• 14:59
  Philip Pape: And then I recall that I had a note on this and wanted to share why that, um, that system, why there could be some uh magic behind this, behind the mathematics of our bodies and our heart rate and our breathing.
• 15:13
  Philip Pape: I mean it's pretty cool, I mean it almost sounds woo, woo, right, but it really is mathematical if you think about it, Um, and then you're literally like tuning your body, like an instrument, bringing your whole system into harmony.
• 15:24
  Philip Pape: And that's why some people do get really great results from breathing work, Um, but others don't, because you, your resonant frequency might not match up with that breathing, and so that is something to think about.
• 15:36
  Philip Pape: In other words, try box breathing and if you can experiment with different numbers of seconds, you may find something that's closer to your resonant frequency.
• 15:46
  Philip Pape: Cool stuff, Whether you buy into it or not, it doesn't hurt to breathe and to relax, guys.
• 15:51
  Philip Pape: Okay, as we wrap up, I want to recap the key points so you don't forget all this.
• 15:57
  Philip Pape: Okay, HRV, resonance theory.
• 15:58
  Philip Pape: Your absolute HRV number matters far less than how it changes from your baseline.
• 16:04
  Philip Pape: Remember that, Like a tuning fork, your body has natural frequencies that work best when in harmony.
• 16:09
  Philip Pape: If you can understand the patterns through both HRV, through your breathing, through your training, recovery, all of your health practices, it's just one more thing in the toolbox to help you improve and optimize the way you live your life.
• 16:21
  Philip Pape: And then simple practices like the controlled breathing can sometimes help you even find your resonant frequency.
• 16:26
  Philip Pape: Isn't that cool?
• 16:27
  Philip Pape: All right, the beauty of viewing HRV through the lens of this theory, through resonance theory, is it transforms something that just seems like this random, complex number into potentially an intuitive tool.
• 16:38
  Philip Pape: You know, you don't have to obsess over the number, Just learn to work with your body's natural rhythms and then the numbers will follow.
• 16:45
  Philip Pape: All right, If you have questions about today's episode or any other health or fitness or nutrition topic you want me to cover on the show, head over to witsandweightscom slash question.
• 16:56
  Philip Pape: Witsandweightscom slash question.
• 16:57
  Philip Pape: I'll throw a link in the show notes and then your question might and I'll say might, but almost most certainly will be featured in a future episode.
• 17:05
  Philip Pape: I mean, I need a lot of topics, folks.
• 17:06
  Philip Pape: I never run out of episodes to put topics into.
• 17:09
  Philip Pape: So today we answered Aubrey's question.
• 17:12
  Philip Pape: Yours can be in a future episode.
• 17:13
  Philip Pape: Go to witsandweightscom slash question.
• 17:16
  Philip Pape: All right, until next time, keep using your wits lifting those weights and remember, just like a well-tuned instrument, your body performs best when all systems are in harmony.
• 17:26
  Philip Pape: I'll talk to you next time here on the Wits and Weights Podcast.