Exercise Recovery
Exercise Recovery provides an assessment of the user's ability for optimal recovery after physical exercise and tracks how the user's exercise program improves their physical resilience and health.
The Exercise Recovery module gives the users an accurate evaluation of their body's ability to recover from physical strain caused by a short exercise.
Depending on individual settings the test may take up to 20 minutes to complete. This test can be used to learn how the user's exercise program improves their physical resilience and health condition from their exercise or wellness program!
For beginners or well-trained athletes who are concerned about their health and fitness and want to improve it, the Exercise Recovery Test is a "must have" tool to ensure a safe and optimal exercise program.
How the Exercise Recovery Test works
During the test, after a short baseline heart-rate recording a short exercise (up to 2 minutes of walking on a treadmill, cycling or taking stairs) is applied followed by an "after-exercise" recovery. Heart-rate is being measured during the recovery phase as well. When exercise starts, the heart-rate begins to rise because the body's internal regulatory system adjusts cardiovascular function to make sure that the body continues to receive an adequate blood supply and oxygen consumption. Once the exercise is stopped the regulatory system changes cardiovascular control to return it to its resting condition in a quick and efficient manner. Being under control of the body's regulatory system, the heart-rate drops and continues declining until full recovery (when heart rate achieves its baseline level) occurs. In a healthy organism this process happens very quickly. The longer the recovery process takes the less efficient the cardiovascular system is and the less capable the body is to recover. It is known that the most dramatic drop in heart-rate should occur within the first minute of the recovery phase. This first minute drop in heart-rate is considered a key indicator of cardiovascular health along with the time of its full recovery.
Doing the Exercise Recovery Test
 Prepare for the test. The Heart Wizard™ provides simple-to-follow instructions to get started including visuals. Plug-in the Heart Wizard's USB pulse wave sensor, attach the ear-clip to your earlobe or a finger, sit down, relax for 1-2 minutes and be ready to perform the test.
Once you're ready, click the "Start" button for recording. The device will start recording your baseline heart-rate and send it to your computer.
After one minute you will be asked to begin selected exercise. Depending on your test configuration, you may continue recording your heart-rate during the exercise or take the sensor off.
Once the exercise phase is over, you will be prompted to sit down, attach the sensor (if it was taken off) and continue the heart-rate recording during the recovery phase. This recording may be automatically stopped once you achieve full recovery. Otherwise it will be continued until maximum recovery time has elapsed.
Once the test is over, the Heart Wizard™ will analyze your body's ability to recover from physical strain.
The Exercise Recovery Test Report
After you complete the test, the Heart Wizard™ compares your results with predicted values from a large normative database of healthy individuals of your gender and age group and generates an assessment report. The report includes information about your current exercise recovery rate and time of full recovery. This will help you to track the ability of your cardiovascular system to recover after physical exercise and will show positive changes caused by your health improvement efforts like nutrition, fitness programs and other exercises that affect your body.
Test results shown in the report:
Time of Full Recovery shows how quickly your cardiovascular system recovers after a dosed physical exercise. Full recovery occurs if your heart-rate drops to the baseline (before exercise) level. If your cardiovascular system is not in best shape, full recovery may not occur within a maximum of 15 minutes provided by the test to measure recovery. If this happens, do not panic – carefully consider your lifestyle, diet and exercise habits. Changing your lifestyle in positive ways may help to restore the capability of your cardiovascular system to recover. Do not forget to consult your doctor before you begin any exercise regimen.
Recovery Rate shows how fast your heart-rate drops after the first minute of the recovery phase compared to your baseline heart-rate. This parameter is considered the best indicator of your cardiovascular health. The higher your recovery rate, the more robust and strong your cardiovascular system is.
Exercise Intensity shows if you have had enough challenge during the exercise phase. The test assumes that you must achieve a top limit of fat burning heart-rate zone (close to 100%). If this parameter is too low, then the accuracy of your test results may be questionable.
Resting Heart Rate shows your overall cardiovascular state at rest. The higher it is the more your cardiovascular system is strained at this time. This could be a result of a health condition, or that your body is fatigued, or you are stressed, etc.
Target Heart Rate shows a suggested level of heart rate you should achieve during the exercise to hit an upper limit of fat burning heart rate zone.
Time of Exercise shows how long you actually did exercise during the test. Insufficient physical strain during the test may not create enough challenge for your cardiovascular system to produce reliable test results. Try to commit to exercise of the suggested length.
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