The Autonomic Pivot: When Less Training Volume Equals Deeper Recovery
The Autonomic Pivot: When Less Training Volume Equals Deeper Recovery By Coach Richard Wharton, OBC | Published: May 25, 2026 Tracking my **Garmin HRV Stress** over the last few months has revealed a fascinating tug-of-war within my autonomic nervous system. Specifically, it shows exactly how shifting training workloads register on the body. Looking back at […]
Cracking the Code: My Physiology First Tabata VO2 Max Deep Dive
Cracking the Code: My Physiology and the Tabata Triple Threat Preface: The Metabolic Green Light vs. The CNS Red Light Before I even turned a pedal, the data was already telling a nuanced story. I woke up with a solid 83 sleep score and a body battery that recharged to 85—clear signals that my recovery […]
The Anatomy of a Good Ride; Physiology, Recovery, and the Portola Block
The Anatomy of a Good Ride: Physiology, Recovery, and the Portola Block I’ve always said that success on the bike isn’t a roll of the dice; it’s a deliberate convergence of external work and internal readiness. This week, I conducted a deep cycling physiology analysis of the Portola block to prove how disciplined recovery yields […]
Life Stress is Training Stress: Navigating the 52-Hour Recovery Debt
Garmin Recovery Metrics: When “Life Stress” Becomes a Physiological Debt Coach Richard Wharton Published: May 11, 2026 Understanding your Garmin recovery metrics is the only way to stay objective when non-training stress starts to bleed into your performance. Following our May 5th deep-dive into what those orange bars actually mean during sleep, today I’m showing […]
The Happy Heart: Decoding My Garmin Sleep-Time Stress
Tracking my sleep isn’t just about how long I was “out”; it’s about what my Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) was doing while the lights were off. As a coach who preaches Physiology First, the Garmin Sleep-Time Stress metric is one of the most honest looks into my recovery. Let’s break down the data from my […]
Sleep Score HRV Stress: The Yin and Yang of Recovery
The Yin and Yang of Recovery Physiology First Training | By Coach Richard Wharton Managing your Sleep Score HRV Stress data is the ultimate balancing act for any serious athlete. I’ve spent the last 48 hours in the “pain cave” building a trailer, manhandling heavy steel. When I pulled my metrics this morning, I saw […]
Mastering the Garmin Ecosystem: Using Sleep Scores and Alpha HRV for a Physiology First Approach
Garmin Guru: Why Your Ride Starts at 10 PM By Coach Wharton | Release Date: April 19, 2026 Garmin Guru insights reveal that in the League of Garmin, we don’t just track miles; we track the internal cost of those miles. To master your performance, you must look past surface-level metrics and understand how the […]
More Fun With Garmin EPOC
Garmin EPOC – A definition Since restarting regular training in February, I’ve come to enjoy the Garmin Connect Ecosystem and Garmin EPOC. EPOC is an acronym that stands for: “Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption”. It means this: When you exercise, you burn fat and carbs. The ratios of fat and carbs burned for fuel, depend on […]
Garmin Connect HRV Status – Bad Night
The Garmin Connect HRV Status Predicted the Obvious – Acute Illness I have been wearing a Garmin Fenix 6 Pro for at least two years. I gave up wearing a watch at some point in the late 1990’s I think. Getting a watch on my right wrist (I am left-handed) took a while to get […]
Testing For DFAa1 to Determine Lower Threshold Power
The DFAa1 Ramp Test Helped Me Set A More Accurate Lower Threshold Power The DFAa1 Ramp Test is a protocol that shows cyclists where their bodies begin to change biologically when under strain. It uses Heart Rate Variability (HRV), and I have studied it since at least 2004, when I wrote a pocket book for […]