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Heart Rate Recovery After Exercise in Body Insights

See the score, one-minute heart-rate drop, and next-morning changes behind each workout.

See my post-workout recovery

Uses available Apple Health data. A CGM is optional.

Example values. Your result depends on the available Apple Health data.

Heart rate recovery, or HRR, is the heart-rate drop in the first minute after exercise. Body Insights shows that drop in beats per minute. Its label also accounts for workout effort.

Body Insights also builds a 0 to 100 Recovery Analysis score from available supported signals. The score can use one-minute HRR and next-morning HRV. Next-morning sleeping heart rate and optional glucose can also contribute. The later Electrolyte Signal stays separate.

What Body Insights shows after a workout

The workout view puts the main result next to its supporting rows. Read them together to see what is behind the number.

  1. Recovery Analysis

    What you seeA status and, when data is ready, a score from 0 to 100

    What it tells youA quick summary of the supported recovery inputs available for that workout.

  2. Cardiac Recovery

    What you seeA label such as Good or Slow, plus the drop in beats per minute

    What it tells youHow much your heart rate fell during the first minute. Workout effort affects the interpretation.

  3. Next Morning

    What you seeHRV Change as a percentage

    What it tells youHow next-morning HRV moved after the workout.

  4. Glucose recovery

    What you seeAn optional recovery pattern from the first three hours

    What it tells youWhether the available glucose trace returned toward its pre-workout level.

  5. Electrolyte Signal

    What you seeA signal badge and, when needed, resting heart rate, HRV, and HRR rows

    What it tells youA separate later check with its own guidance. It does not change the Recovery Analysis score.

Example: slow cardiac recovery after a hard workout

A hard workout shows Cardiac Recovery as Slow at 10 bpm. The next-morning HRV change is -18%. The optional glucose trace has returned to normal.

The headline can still say Recovery Impaired. The lower HRV and slow one-minute drop remain important. Keep the next workout easy. Then compare it with another hard session under similar conditions.

When each recovery result appears

The rows do not all arrive at once. Each one uses a time window tied to the workout.

  1. Workout ends. Body Insights records the workout and starts the recovery windows.
  2. About one minute later. Cardiac Recovery uses the heart-rate drop when Apple Health has a supported sample.
  3. During the first three hours. An optional glucose trace can show how the reading moved toward its pre-workout level.
  4. About 3.5 hours later. The separate Electrolyte Signal checks available resting heart rate, HRV, and HRR data.
  5. The next morning. Fresh HRV and sleeping heart-rate data can update the Recovery Analysis score.

How to use your recovery result

Compare similar workouts

Compare hard sessions with other hard sessions. Do the same for easy sessions. Heart-rate recovery depends in part on how hard the workout was.

Read the rows with the score

The same score can come from different available inputs. Start with Cardiac Recovery and Next Morning. Then read the optional glucose and Electrolyte Signal details.

Wait for the morning update

New next-morning Apple Health data can change the result. Check the workout again after it arrives.

What changes when data is missing

You do not need a CGM. Without glucose data, the score can still use one-minute HRR. It can also use next-morning HRV and sleeping heart rate when those samples are available.

A missing sample stays missing instead of becoming zero. The workout view shows Analysis Pending until a supported recovery input is ready. The separate Electrolyte Signal stays empty if its later data is unavailable.

See what changed after your workout

Body Insights keeps the score, heart-rate drop, next-morning change, and available context together in your workout view.

See my post-workout recovery