Firstbeat HRV Summit 2019 Recap
I recently had the pleasure of attending the 2019 Firstbeat HRV Summit in Helsinki, Finland. You might also be asking yourself – who even is Firstbeat?
If you happen to have a Garmin, Suuntu, or another GPS enabled smartwatch then you’re likely already using their technology. Firstbeat is the worlds foremost leader in physiological analytics for sports and well-being.
The devices which we use for analysis of physiological traits such as heart rate monitoring or tracking our steps have to be able to translate the data recorded by physical sensors to actionable data. This is where Firstbeat comes in.
A breakthrough in a Finnish sports-sciences research revealed how heart rate variability (HRV) could be used to translate human physiology into a mathematical model. This research enabled Firstbeat to create a window into our inner body functions, allowing for the mapping of stress, recovery, and exercise performance.
The innovative use of HRV evolved into the advanced performance analytics that Firstbeat provides today. This is how the science of human physiology stepped out of the labs and into everyday life.
The central theme of the 2019 Firstbeat HRV Summit was Elements of Optimal Performance.
Be it on the sports field, at work, or at the gym, optimal performance is united by recurring elements:
- Sleep & Recovery
- Fitness & Training
- Stress & Resilience
Throughout the entire summit, these central themes were discussed and new strides in the field debated. My notes on these subjects and others can be found below.
Day 1
Firstbeat Advancements
New FirstBeat VO2 Max technology takes wind and humidity into consideration.
Sleep Recovery
In regards to heart rate variability, 4:50am is the time of night which you get the most recuperative and overall best sleep. This took 500+ data points into consideration over the course of an extensive sleep study.
Sleep Disorders
Over 20% of Finnish citizens have sleep disorders due to geography. There is no better way to increase your health than to simply sleep more.
Power Napping
10 minutes of power napping when sleep deprived, improves cognitive performance for up to 3 hours.
Psychological Stress & Sleep
Shift workers experience the worst sleep of anyone due to acute psychological stress as recovery via deep sleep is constantly disrupted.
Most Relevant Factors
- Job Control, Social Support, Organizational Justice
Inconclusive Factors
- Job Demands, Effort / Reward Imbalance
The most efficient amount of time to work is 6 hours per day. With periodic rest and recovery throughout.
Panel Discussion
There are inflammatory markers in your blood related to sleep or a lack thereof. This comes from a small sample size and there needs to be more research in this space. However, power naps are shown to help aid in reducing inflammatory markers.
Clean data is integral to extracting insights. With too many variances or outliers, data becomes is inconclusive.
HRV
Using averages of 7+ days yields the greatest results for effective metrics to be measured and benchmarked.
Wearables
Consumer experience spending is projected to slow in 2019.
There is an opportunity for differentiation in the market as the market is heavily saturated but with surface level use products. While there are more robust products in market, these are largely for enthusiasts today.
Quantified self focused wearables have caused trend in wearables spend to buck in 2014. This has resulted in a plateau as market leaders go deeper feature and function wise.
30% of Americans (18% Europe) will use a wearable by 2023
Voice assistant via wrist is the feature set that will win over the largely underserved next generation market of wearable consumers.
DC Rainmaker (Wearables / Fitness Tech Blogger)
Most consumer technology today is simply converting dumb metrics to smart metrics i.e. steps to stress / heart rate.
Consumers don’t understand that wearables / health tech are being used in ways that medical health tech devices aren’t. Trying to record and measure blood oxygen saturation on the side of a mountain is a vastly different challenge than that of a clinical use in a controlled hospital environment.
Data does not equal training. People have too much data, but nothing to do with it and no way to interpret it. “The data says one thing, the coach is telling you something different – what do you make of it?”
Community indoor training is skyrocketing! Zwift is the leader today but the barrier is low as experience of competitors is lackluster.
Social accountability is important for this community. This translates to outdoor, not-in home training.
Training considerations – smart training plans adjusting based upon injury / and individual travel are on the way but not anytime soon. Best estimate is that these types of plans are 2-4 years out from first implementation.
Emerging Markets Adoption
38% of people that participate in group exercise in China, do so through running clubs.
In the past 30 years (until 2013), only 30 running books have come out. In the last 5 years, 500+ books have come out. There’s a craving for more knowledge, content, and stories.
Panel Discussion
Trends in wearables
Consumer centric features focus around music & the accuracy of data.
The next use case for wearable health tech is in Healthcare.
Social training trends
There is a huge interest in this space. Peloton is used by both pros and amateurs. Peloton has been successful partly the result of building a product that is not only for enthusiasts, but absolutely due to building motivation for all.
Apps
Smartwatch apps will get better with more relevant data points at a glance for the average user that doesn’t care about enthusiast attributes.
There is an opportunity to integrate other use-cases into apps. Potentially use these as an omni-channel marketplace for interaction with health professionals & personal trainers.
Day 2
Recovery – Forming Habits
To form effective habits, you need a model to follow. Having a personal role model in your life that effectively manages their recovery is extremely influential.
There is an opportunity to aggregate health data across groups of people to unearth causation for fluctuations in stress throughout a population. For example – a company literally having their finger on the pulse of a workforce to effectively manage workload.
Preventing Burnout
How do you sustain high performance without burning out?
Thought leaders & knowledge workers are attracted to high demand sport.
Knowledge work is a heavy cognitive demand compared to the physical demand that a construction worker might endure.
Our society is spiraling towards being under rested and unfocused. This is due to the constant use of communication tools (phones, computers, email), interruptions, and multi-screen media consumption. When there is time to focus or relax, take it – don’t repurpose to get more work or other tasks done.
For Physical Demand
- Apply effort at the right place and time
- Recover when appropriate
- Follow your own rhythm
Hypothesis – Could LSD be the key to more creative effort and less stress? We are often looking for treatments to solve the ailments but not to solve the underlying issues.
Balance may be a myth within athletics and cognitive load. Why do we have desirable peaks and valleys in a race with variable heart rate / power generated based upon the course – but seek a constant trend line (perceived balance) in our cognitive work / everyday life?
You can’t always be on
Panel Discussion
Favorite way to recover – cycle and beer! Travel a lot, good recovery for ones self and for time with your family after.
Wrap-Up
I hope the above notes were as helpful to you as they were to me for better understanding where we should all be putting in time and perhaps where we should be pulling back in our lives.
For more detail and the summit program, feel free to visit the links below:
Website: https://www.firstbeat.com/en/firstbeat-hrv-summit-2019/#summit
Program: https://assets.firstbeat.com/firstbeat/uploads/2019/05/Firstbeat-HRV-Summit-2019-agenda.pdf