Matteo Campagna
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Higher heart rate variability goes with better aerobic fitness

2 studies

ForContextAgainst20142016201820202022202420262014, for2014, context2017, context
Each circle is a study: its position gives the year, its row whether it is for, against or context, its size how many participants it measured. Light circles are studies on other populations or without archers.

Nobody has ever measured this in archers: the idea comes from general physiology. A review of heart rate variability biofeedback summarises the studies in which people with low and less complex variability are older and less aerobically fit, and this entry stops at that part. The same review also links low variability to illness, but that link comes largely from patients, and in this registry studies of clinical populations cannot support a claim: that is why this entry does not say that high variability is a sign of health. The 2017 methodological recommendations add a caution: higher resting vagal tone is usually a favourable sign, but not always, and there are conditions in which it is high for reasons unrelated to fitness. What is missing is the step to the archer, and the primary studies too: the review summarises, and the registry holds no measurement setting an archer's variability beside their aerobic capacity. It therefore stays transferred.

Also phrased as: "hrv and aerobic fitness"; "heart rate variability and recovery"; "morning hrv"; "vagal tone and health"; "hrv as a fitness marker"

In practice

It is said that a high morning heart rate variability is the sign of a body that has recovered and is healthy, and that when it drops training should be eased off.

Evidence

  • 2014
    For General population Published later

    Narrative review of the mechanisms of biofeedback: it summarises studies in which low and less complex heart rate variability goes with older age and lower aerobic fitness. The data are second-hand, and no archers were among the people measured.

    Heart rate variability biofeedback: how and why does it work? · Paul M. Lehrer, Richard Gevirtz

  • 2014
    Context General population Published later

    The same review also links low variability to physical and emotional illness and, in seriously ill patients, to higher mortality. These are largely clinical data, which in this registry cannot support a claim: they stay as context.

    Heart rate variability biofeedback: how and why does it work? · Paul M. Lehrer, Richard Gevirtz

  • 2014
    Context General population Published later

    In the same review, healthy adults exposed to an experimental inflammation with lipopolysaccharide: with heart rate variability biofeedback the effects of the inflammation on sympathetic and parasympathetic activity are much reduced, but inflammatory cytokines do not fall. Autonomic regulation improves, the inflammation marker does not.

    Heart rate variability biofeedback: how and why does it work? · Paul M. Lehrer, Richard Gevirtz

  • 2017
    Context General population Published later

    Methodological recommendations for psychophysiological research: higher resting vagal tone is as a rule a favourable sign, but with documented exceptions in which it is high for metabolic reasons rather than good condition. It measures nobody: it is a general rule with its limits, written by people who use the measure.

    Heart rate variability and cardiac vagal tone in psychophysiological research – recommendations for experiment planning, data analysis, and data reporting · Sylvain Laborde, Emma Mosley, Julian F. Thayer

Status history

  1. 2014 Transferred The question enters the registry from outside. A review of heart rate variability biofeedback summarises the studies in which low and less complex variability goes with older age and lower aerobic fitness; it also links low variability to illness, but that part comes from patients and does not count here. No archers among the people measured, and the data come at second hand: transferred.
  2. 2017 Transferred The methodological recommendations for heart rate variability research bring a caution from the same circles that built the measure: higher resting vagal tone is usually a favourable sign, but not always, and there are conditions in which it is high for reasons that have nothing to do with fitness. The transfer stands, but it is more fragile than the everyday use of the measure in precision sports suggests.

Related

Related articles

Research lines

Where there are no studies on archers, every decision starts from a written hypothesis and is checked against the data over time.

See the programme
Cite
APA

Campagna, M. (2026). Higher heart rate variability goes with better aerobic fitness (Version 2). In Evidence Registry. Retrieved 16 October 2026, from https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/health/heart-rate-variability-aerobic-fitness

BibTeX
@misc{campagna2026_hrvaltasegnosalute,
  author = {Campagna, Matteo},
  title = {Higher heart rate variability goes with better aerobic fitness},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {Evidence Registry, matteocampagna.com},
  url = {https://matteocampagna.com/en/registry/health/heart-rate-variability-aerobic-fitness},
  note = {Version 2; accessed 2026-10-16}
}

Other claims in this domain

See all claims on health and recovery