Track Your Resting Heart Rate

Resting heart rate is one of the cheapest and most underused readiness signals available. Measured first thing in the morning, before getting out of bed, it provides a daily snapshot of how well your autonomic nervous system has recovered overnight. The pattern is more useful than any single number.

Establish a baseline. For two weeks, measure your morning heart rate as soon as you wake. A finger on the wrist, counting beats for sixty seconds, is enough, though a smartwatch or a fitness tracker simplifies the process. Track the values. Find the average.

From then on, deviations matter. A morning reading five or more beats above baseline often signals incomplete recovery, from training, from poor sleep, from illness in its early stages, from emotional stress. On those days, train lighter than planned, or take a rest day. The signal is not perfect, but used over weeks, it teaches you to distinguish between fatigue you can train through and fatigue you cannot.