I was watching a show on triathlon training last night and they threw in this little tidbit about recovery and your resting heart rate that I found very interesting, and thought I'd share.

The show claimed that one of the best ways to tell if you have recovered from yesterdays workout is by taking your resting heart rate every morning. It's normal to have a 2-5 beat difference from day to day but if your resting heart rate jumps up by 5-10 beats it's a good indication you have not recovered fully from previous workouts or is an indication you're getting sick (probably as a result of over training if I had to guess).

Did a little research on the subject and here are a couple interesting related articles people might want to check out:
[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_rate#Heart_Rate_Variability_.28HRV.29[/url]

[url]http://www.cptips.com/hrmntr.htm[/url] (The section on "USING A HRM TO AVOID OVERTRAINING" talks about increased resting HR due to over training.)

[url]http://www.cptips.com/ovrtrng.htm[/url]

Ryan

For those of you that have Polar HRM there is a test that you can take called OwnIndex that gives you a very accurate indication of your fitness and compares it to others in your age bracket. The test classification results are based on a literature review of 62 sttudies where VO2max was measured directly in healthy adults.

Reguarding the "resting heart rate", I quit drinking coffee and my resting heart rate declined by about 10 bpm.

Mt heart rate is effected by caffeine even 10-20 hours after having a last cup of coffee.

Also, since I quit coffee I feel more motivated to ride in the afternoon and evening. Instead of coming down from my caffeine buzz and feeling sluggish.

Sam