What kind of recovery data can I track with KULG?
Written By KULG App
Last updated 3 months ago
Tracking recovery data, such as resting heart rate, heart rate variability (HRV), and sleep quality, is essential to understand how well your body is recovering between workouts. Monitoring these indicators provides insight into when to push harder or ease up, helping to prevent overtraining and reduce injury risk. By prioritising recovery, runners can train more consistently and improve overall performance.
We strongly encourage runners to track recovery data and subjective feel even if it takes an extra moment to add to KULG because that’s often the most important part of the feedback. As with other metrics, we recommend focusing on overall trends rather than fixating on specific numbers from day to day. But if you’re feeling more fatigued, experiencing higher stress, and your recovery metrics suggest incomplete recovery, it’s wise to opt for an easier day, even if the training plan calls for a high-intensity workout.
Recovery data that you can track with KULG App:
Resting heart rate (RHR): the number of times your heart beats per minute (bpm) while at rest and a key indicator of fitness level and recovery status; you can measure RHR either in the morning or during sleep but it is advised to measure resting HR according to the same logic to be able to see reliable trends and patterns; nighttime measurements that capture a longer, uninterrupted period when the body is fully relaxed can be more reliable (→ read more).
Heart rate variability (HRV): the variation in time between heartbeats measured in milliseconds (ms), representing the time variation between consecutive heartbeats; tracking HRV over time helps assess recovery and stress levels and enables to identify patterns in your body’s response to training, allowing for adjustments that optimise performance and prevent overtraining; nightly measurements offer a clearer picture of baseline recovery trends (→ read more).
Sleep quality: your personal rating of how well you slept on the night before your training on the scale of 1 to 5; by monitoring your sleep data on training days, you can better manage your overall training load and also understand how it impacts your results; we believe that your internal view of the quantity and quality of your sleep is more accurate than any estimated score from a sleep measuring device but you can use the sleep score from your sleep measuring device as the basis to rate your sleep (→ read more).
Sync your recovery data directly from Garmin to KULG
Your recovery data (Resting HR, HRV, and Sleep Score) syncs directly from Garmin to KULG. As long as you sleep with your Garmin watch, we’ll automatically add this data to your activities, helping you see how recovery and performance connect (→ read more).
Tips for interpreting recovery data 💡
→ Generally speaking, the lower your resting heart rate and the higher the HRV relative to your individual baseline, the better the recovery and overall cardiovascular health.
→ Focus on weekly or monthly trends rather than fixating on specific numbers from day to day; a high resting HR or low HRV may just indicate you need a bit more rest.
→ HRV is highly influenced by sleep quality, stress, nutrition, consumption of alcohol as well as training.
→ It is useful to view resting HR and HRV together - if both metrics trend in the wrong direction, it makes sense to hold back with high intensity training.
Data accuracy ⌚️
We suggest measuring nighttime HRV and resting heart rate (RHR) for better accuracy. Whether you choose to measure these metrics at night or during the morning/daytime, it's important to maintain consistency in your approach to identify comparable trends and patterns. Different devices measure RHR and HRV using varying methods, either providing an average based on a few hours of data or continuous tracking.
Overall, Oura and Whoop are often considered to provide more accurate RHR and HRV measurements due to their focus on sleep and recovery metrics. Watch apps, e.g. Garmin are also reliable, but performance can be slightly more variable depending on your activity level and how consistently the watch is worn.