The 2018 HRV Summit gathered over 200 guests from around the world at Lords Cricket Ground, London to hear from industry experts within the sports, wellbeing and consumer devices sectors.
Across the two-day event, we learnt why fitness does (and really should) matter to everyone, from elite professional athletes to the average working person. We were given a peak behind the curtain of top-level sports clubs like Arsenal and Eintracht Frankfurt, got the inside track on wearable tech from the who’s who of the consumer devices industry, and discovered the challenges – and solutions – surrounding corporate wellness in 2018.
The Summit also saw Firstbeat unveil two exciting new features; the Stress & Recovery report feature for Firstbeat Sports, and the introduction of VO2Max measurements within the Firstbeat Lifestyle Assessment.
Firstbeat HRV Summit 2019 in Helsinki – see you there!
Speakers
Firstbeat HRV Summit featured professional speakers across many fields of health and technology.
See confirmed HRV Summit speakers
Photos
Firstbeat HRV Summit Moments in Twitter
Videos
Presentations HRV Summit 2018 Day 1
The first day of the Summit included talks on the applications of heart rate variability on sports performance, wellness, and preventive healthcare settings. Experts shared how HRV-based insights remove the guesswork to produce better coaching and personal decisions regarding physical activity, fitness, sleep, stress and recovery.
Session 1: Why Fitness Matters
Whether you’re an elite athlete, targeting health benefits, or just trying to feel younger, easy access to your cardiorespiratory fitness, proven to relate to overall health, quality of life, and performance, is a game changer. It also opens the door to a wealth of personalized insight and guidance.
Session 2: Enhancing Performance and Readiness
To perform at a high level when it matters most, adequate recovery is a must. Load management makes it possible to reduce injuries and sick days alike. On the field, in the workplace, and at home successful people strive towards and achieve the right balance.
Session 3: Compelling Wearables and Consumer Technology
The race is on, and the future belongs to devices capable of providing more meaningful, more personalized feedback. HRV-derived insights power the health, fitness, and performance features that keep wearables interesting. What will tomorrow bring?
Session 4: Powering Preventive Healthcare
Small changes can make a big difference. An evidence-based approach offers an opportunity to pinpoint the antecedents of lifestyle diseases and simultaneously reveals a path for sustainable behavioral change.
HRV Summit 2018 Day 2
The second day of the Summit saw workshops focussed on wellbeing and sport, respectively.
Sports workshop
Overview of Firstbeat Sports system – where are we heading? – Veli-Pekka Kurunmaki, Firstbeat
The Firstbeat Sports platform strives to help coaches and athletes achieve 3 things; optimized performance, reduction in injuries and fast-track player development. Firstbeat Head of Sports Performance Products, Veli-Pekka Kurunmaki, outlined how the Firstbeat team continues to do this. From continuing to develop accurate analysis through lab work, to presenting coaches with an accessible platform from which they can dig deeper into the data. Veli-Pekka concluded by highlighting the latest additions to the platform, including the new mobile app for fitness and remote training.
Pre-release: Stress and sleep monitoring for elite sports – Tero Myllymaki, Firstbeat
Tero Myllymaki unveiled the latest update to the Firstbeat Sports platform, providing an overview of the new Stress and Recovery analysis feature. Providing athletes and coaches the chance to monitor recovery and stress levels over a full 24-hour cycle, the update gives athletes a greater understanding of their own well-being and provides coaches the big picture beyond practice. Tero confirmed the expected roll out date is Summer 2018.
Managing training load and recovery in ice hockey – Jarkko Hyytia, Finnish ice hockey league JYP
Conditioning coach for current Continental Hockey League champions JYP, Jarkko Hyytia has experience working with elite athletes to manage training load and recovery to maximize performance throughout the season. By providing data on several JYP players, Hyytia was able to show how recovery differs across an entire roster – highlighting the impact of things like age, injury history, fixture congestion and potential lifestyle choices off the ice. Referencing Firstbeat Sports measurements, the Finnish coach pinpointed key metrics and how he uses this objective data within context to work with players on an individual level.
The sports workshop concluded with a roundtable discussion where guests had the chance to quiz a panel of experts who already implement Firstbeat Sports in their work.
Wellness Workshop
5-minute Expert Presentations: Corporate Wellness Projects
- Dr. Erica Thieman, University of Illinois
- Gergely Vada, Fusion Vital
- Jonathan Bloomfield, PhD, Support2Perform
- Carlyle Jenkins, Prohab Performance
- Ian Mackenzie, BNP Paribas
Corporate wellness projects can come in all shapes and sizes. This was made clear as experts in the field from the USA, Hungary, Australia, and the UK presented five very different, but equally successful, cases that utilised Firstbeat Lifestyle Assessment to enhance wellness. One of the common themes that emerged was that showing individuals real, personal and objective data can have lasting results when placed within a well-rounded wellness project and positioned correctly.
This wellness workshop also included an interactive group exercise on wellness trends and solutions brilliantly led by Simon Shepard of Optima Life.
Travel
Venue: Lord’s Cricket Ground, Nursery Pavilion
Address: St John’s Wood Rd, London NW8 8QN, UK | see map
Please arrive by the North Gate, which is located off Wellington Road. See more instructions here
How to get to Lord’s:
Lord’s is located in central London, just a few minutes’ walk from Regent’s Park. The nearest London Underground station is St John’s Wood, and there are several underground stops within walking distance. See more here
Please be aware the Nursery Pavilion has a “smart casual” dress code for events.
What happened at Firstbeat HRV Summit 2017?
The very first Firstbeat HRV Summit held in Helsinki, Finland gathered over 150 international guests to hear speakers from various corporations share their professional insights about HRV.
Take a look at the HRV Summit 2017 overview and on Twitter #HRVSUMMIT17.
