Waking heart rate and overtraining

Dude, those numbers look good now. You're ready to get back to normal training. Your Rusko Index (10% of lying HR + 30% of 1 min standing HR) went from 28.1 to 21.0 in 4 days. That's great!

Keep an eye on it once you start back, and if your index gets over 25 or so, think about backing it off.

jT

anyone care to give a brief explanation of the Rusko index?

thanks!

It's a cheap, easy and relatively effective (just my opinion) way to monitor over-reaching and over-training in athletes. One of the thoughts when Rusko developed the test was that under periods of prolonged stress, an athlete's ability to respond to rapid changes in blood pressure was weakened. You can google scholar "orthostatic intolerance" for your own review on the theory behind it. But, basically, by having an athlete stand up after having laid down for 8-10 minutes, you can examine the quick response the body is having to the rapid change in blood pressure through the heart rate response.

So, here's how to do it properly:

lie down for 8-10 minutes in a comfortable, quiet place, get a HR at the end of the lying down period

Stand up

Remain standing for 2 minutes

Your Rusko index = 0.1xlying HR + 0.3xstanding HR

A 'high number' will be cause for concern and may indicate some aspect of fatigue or undertraining/detraining. As with any physiological measurement, it's important to get a good baseline for you/your athletes when you're training well.

jT

Thanks... Just what I wanted to hear (we just started to get some nice fall weather in FL).

Any advice on whether to continue with my periodization/ peak towards a goal race in a month vs starting back with base work?...ie are people more susceptible to falling back into overtraining in the short term following recovery?

Some more background: towards the end of July I started noticing a dramatic decline in workout performance (including easy runs). I took a few days off in mid-Aug and did some xT indoors/out of the heat. Had a handful of good workouts since, but most were still worse than what I did in early July.

Last Friday I did an 8k xc race and finished ~ 2min slower than I expected...ended up being about 15s/mile slower than my first 10k race his past April, even though I've done much more training since then.

Anyways, the day 5 off my HR was a week after my last hard effort. I took the day after my 8k Off, then an easy 30 min Sunday, 20 min easy on

Monday- which is when I started measuring my HR, and off since then.

Learn something new every day (if you're lucky). I'd never heard of that before. What constitutes a "high number" or is it totally athlete dependent?

jtupperware you are the man. its almost like a 15 min test you can do anytime to see if you're overtrained or not. what is a good range for the score?

rusty cage wrote:

Learn something new every day (if you're lucky). I'd never heard of that before. What constitutes a "high number" or is it totally athlete dependent?

It's totally athlete dependent, which is why it's extremely important to get a good baseline index while you're feeling good. I've personally dealt with athletes (swimmers/XC skiing/runners) who had normal indexes as low as 18 and as high as 35... it just depends on what your normal resting heart rate is and how sensitive your baroreflex is.

Over time, you'll start to see elevanted numbers (say, for example going from 21 to 24) after hard efforts, which should come back down the next day or two. If, for example, you're still elevated 2-3 days after this hard effort, then it's time to take it easy. I know the Finns have developed a similar (more sophisticated) tool using this basic test which simply gives the athlete a "red light" (literally) or a "green light" to tell them whether they're good to go!

As for the original post, it looks like you can resume normal training, so I wouldn't worry too much about getting "back into base season". You may have lost a little bit, but your numbers look good to start to resume normal training. I say this knowing nothing about your previous training, so take it for what it's worth.

jT

Bump...

anyone out there include resting heart rate in their log? Useful? Superfluous if you have a good sense of your own body?

Mine goes as follows:

40, 49, 42

That's a rusko index of 16.6%

Is that good?

themanontherun wrote:

Bump...

anyone out there include resting heart rate in their log? Useful? Superfluous if you have a good sense of your own body?

No, I don't do that. If you really need to check your resting heart rate to know how your body is recovering, then there is something wrong with your mentality.