What the study found
Monthly heart-rate, HRV and mood measures poorly detected changes in physical performance, despite relatively high specificity.
Participants and protocol
Thirty-seven adolescent handball players were assessed eleven times during a season using resting measures, questionnaires and sprint, jump and aerobic tests.
What this cannot establish
These findings concern monthly monitoring in young team-sport athletes. They neither validate a daily readiness score nor show that HRV should determine training on its own.
Publication details
- Record
- PubMed 25429552
- Indexed subjects
- Lower Extremity · Fatigue · Sensitivity and Specificity · Affect · Psychometrics
- Source record checked
- 2026-10-18
Publication type and subject indexing describe the record; they are not a quality grade or proof of a benefit. An abstract does not replace a review of the full methods and results.
Adaptive AI coach for iPhone
Meet your adaptive AI coach.
Tell your coach what you are training for. It builds the plan, follows the work you complete, and adapts upcoming training when recovery, your schedule, or real life changes.
Keep going
Performance Science Lab
Research summaries for endurance athletes, with study context, practical protocols, and clear limitations.
Open guideMonitoring performance research
Monitoring is useful when it changes decisions: training load, recovery signals, and pacing control.
Open guideRecovery speed research for endurance athletes
Faster recovery means you can train consistently — the real performance moat.
Open guide