The Experience of Tracking Recovery with the Oura Ring

In the previous post, I began experimenting with sleep tracking to improve my recovery for weightlifting. I’ve tried both the Oura ring and the Whoop band, but today I’ll focus on the Oura, which is my preferred option, and share the metrics I found most valuable.

As we discussed earlier, sleep plays a vital role in athletic recovery. After a tough workout, your body requires time to heal. Depending on the intensity of the strain, this recovery process can range from days to weeks. Any coach will tell you that getting adequate sleep consistently is one of the best ways to support recovery. (A healthy diet comes in at a close second, while other methods like massage, ice baths, and supplements are less important by comparison.)

I’ve been using the Oura ring for almost three months now, alongside my workout logs and other tracking data. Oura offers a web-based platform for graphing data at cloud.ouraring.com, which I’ve used to observe trends. I’ll share screenshots from both the web interface and the app in this article to illustrate my findings.

What the Oura ring tracks

The Oura ring, which is a simple piece of jewelry worn on your finger, contains sensors that monitor your heartbeat, body temperature, and movement. Based on the data it collects, the app calculates various scores and metrics. For example, it measures your lowest heart rate during the night and also notes the time at which it occurs. It combines several metrics to provide an overall sleep score each night, and a 'readiness' score each morning. (Gizmodo’s review goes into more detail on the features, if you’re curious.)

The Oura ring can kind of track exercise—it adds activity points when I go for a walk—but for more accurate data, you might want to use a different tracker or manually log your workouts. For example, I can track a strength training session on my Apple Watch, or simply remove all trackers and input that I lifted weights for two hours afterward.

(The ring is comfortable enough for everyday wear, but it can feel bulky when lifting weights. I remove my Oura ring and wedding rings when I work out. Some people don’t mind the sensation and keep their rings on during exercise, while others prefer to take them off to avoid scratching the finish. It’s up to you.)

While you sleep, Oura’s sensors track your resting heart rate, heart rate variability, body temperature, and respiratory rate. They can also detect when you’re moving versus when you’re fully asleep, and using all these metrics, they can make accurate guesses about your sleep phases, even determining when you enter deep, light, or REM sleep. We cycle through these stages multiple times each night, and in the morning, you can view them all in a graph.

The metrics I focus on

Each day, the app provides you with a readiness score and a sleep score. (There’s also an activity score, but you’ll only see it if you go to the activity tab.) The readiness score is the first number you see on the app’s home screen, and it takes everything into account, including your sleep score and recent activity.

Out of all the graphs and metrics in the app, the one I find most useful is the graph on the readiness screen. It displays the readiness score as a bar graph, with a layer showing your resting heart rate for each day.

Back in the days before sleep or digital fitness trackers existed, I was familiar with resting heart rate. A lower RHR indicates better cardiovascular fitness, so it’s exciting to see it drop as you get fitter. But if your RHR suddenly spikes, it might mean you're pushing yourself too hard. Overtraining syndrome can cause an increase in resting heart rate, as can illness or stress.

(A quick note about these numbers: while my resting heart rate in the graph is indeed on the low side—which is generally considered a good sign—that’s also the lowest rate the ring detects throughout the night. Our heart rates drop pretty low when we sleep. As I sit here writing, with some caffeine and leg bouncing, my pulse is around 60. If I were sitting still, it might be in the 50s. A typical low for me during the night is in the mid to high 40s. Years ago, when training for a half-marathon, it regularly dropped to the low 40s.)

In this graph—focusing more on RHR than readiness, to be honest—I can clearly observe the patterns of my training week. I do my regular workouts during the week, followed by my heaviest session on Saturday, and take Sundays off. My resting heart rate rises through the week— that 53 on Saturday—and resets after my rest day.

A few weeks ago, I decided to start taking a mid-week break. On Wednesdays, instead of lifting, I go for a light run. That evening, my resting heart rate sometimes drops a little. I don’t have enough data to be completely sure, but I think this helps keep my RHR from spiking too much by the end of the week. In other words, I believe the mid-week break is doing its job by providing extra recovery time. It also helps spread out my rest, rather than only resting on Sunday.

How the metrics connect

One question that kept popping up as I wore this $300 (yes) ring was: could I get this data elsewhere? In terms of sleep score, the answer is probably yes. While many factors contribute, including efficiency (how much of the night you actually sleep), restfulness (how much you move), latency (how long it takes to fall asleep after lying down), and the amount of REM and deep sleep, the biggest influence for me was simply the amount of sleep I got. Here’s a graph from Oura Cloud showing how my sleep score compared to my total sleep duration:

There are other ways to track your total sleep, of course. You could keep a notebook by your bed to record when you fall asleep and wake up, or use a less specialized device like a FitBit to monitor your sleep patterns.

I also found it intriguing that the Oura (like Whoop and other trackers) monitors both resting heart rate and heart rate variability. These two metrics are closely linked to how your body reacts to stress, including the stress from training. When you're well-rested, you should see a low resting heart rate and a high heart rate variability. Here’s how those two factors relate for me:

Could I have gathered this information from another source? Probably not with the same level of ease. A few nights, I wore my Apple Watch along with the Oura ring. The Apple Watch also tracks resting heart rate overnight, but its readings were generally higher, and it didn’t capture that weekly work-and-rest rhythm as effectively. I also compared the resting heart rate data from Whoop and Oura (more details about Whoop in the next post) and found them to align well, though Oura’s values tended to be a few beats lower than Whoop’s:

As you review all the data the app provides, you might begin to wonder how to optimize each of these metrics. The r/ouraring subreddit is full of discussions where users ask whether their HRV is “good” or not. However, the goal here is to observe how your metrics evolve over time, rather than judge them as fixed values. If your HRV is low for you, it could signal that you're not fully recovered from some form of stress. But comparing your HRV to others globally may not give you valuable insight.

What I don’t do with this information

I still hold firm to the perspective I had when I began this journey, which is that I would never trust a gadget more than I trust my body’s signals.

In fact, I don't alter my training based on how I feel unless there's a clear, valid reason. That's because how I feel on any given day doesn't outweigh the overall picture of my training plan. My coach often reminds me that feeling tired or struggling with lifts may simply mean the program is doing its job and challenging me. My guiding principles are my goals and my body's responses; I don’t let a sleep score dictate my decisions.

If Monday is squat day, I’ll show up and do my squats, regardless of how tired or sluggish I might feel. An app's score isn’t going to change that decision. My experience has taught me that how you feel at the start of a workout doesn’t always predict the outcome. While I’m more likely to have a great session or hit a personal record when I’m well-rested, I’ve also set numerous PRs on days when I woke up feeling terrible.

Sleep expert Amy Bender frequently advises athletes to remove their sleep tracker in the days before a competition, suggesting that it helps them avoid overthinking.

What I actually do

The long-term trends are what I find most valuable. I pay attention to how my scores evolve, particularly looking for the boost after a rest day. If my heart rate stays elevated and my readiness remains low, even after a day off, it’s a signal that my routine might not be giving me enough recovery time. I don’t let a bad score make me skip a workout; instead, I focus on planning the best approach for the upcoming week or month.

I also treat the scores as feedback on how well I’m recovering. Early in my intense training program, I made sure to get plenty of sleep, and my scores reflected that. But as I started staying up a bit later (I'm a natural night owl), I noticed that my sleep scores remained solid. Rather than waiting a week to see if less sleep would cause increased fatigue, the scores gave me faster feedback.

I noticed two factors that seemed to prevent my sleep score from reaching its peak. One factor, which I believe is simply incorrect, will be discussed at the end of this piece. The other, restfulness, measures how much I move during the night. Since I share a bed, this made me realize that sleeping alone might improve my sleep quality. After testing this theory, I found that I do indeed sleep better when I’m alone in bed. While I can’t apply this every night (due to limited beds in the house), I’ve made a note of it for future reference.

The Oura app deserves credit for striking the perfect balance between helping me learn from my data and not being overly directive. I’ve tried many health-focused apps over the years, and nearly all of them were intrusive and judgmental. Every interaction seemed to carry the hidden message, “You’re doing it wrong”. And if you got something right, it was more like “Better not mess this up”. Oura, however, doesn’t take that approach.

Instead, Oura’s messages are more encouraging. After using it for a while, the app will suggest a bedtime window with a neutral tone. (“Your ideal bedtime is between 10:45 p.m.-11:45 p.m. Last night, you went to bed at 11:42 p.m.”) I appreciate these suggestions, especially since it’s an hour-long window rather than a rigid cutoff. If I’m curious, I can tap the card to view a graph of my bedtimes over the past few weeks. I’ve managed to hit the window most nights, which is good to know.

The messages accompanying your readiness and sleep scores are just as supportive. “We like to think of ourselves as Alfred, and the user as Batman,” Oura’s CEO Harpreet Rai shared in an interview. “We believe users know their bodies. We’re simply providing a bit of insight along the way.”

Here are some examples of the types of insights the app has shared with me, along with my daily scores:

• “You’ve had a nice balance of easy days in your workout routine recently. How are you feeling—ready to step it up a notch?” (readiness score 85/optimal)

• “Your resting heart rate suggests that you may not be fully recovered. Consider taking it easy today to recharge.” (readiness score 64/pay attention)

• “Looks like you’ve had a good amount of exercise over the past week. Maintaining a healthy mix of training and rest days is key for improving fitness and endurance, so keep it going!” (readiness score 87/optimal)

• “It seems like your sleep wasn’t great last night, which is affecting your readiness. To get back on track, try to relax today and make sleep a priority tonight.” (readiness score 74/good)

I asked Rai about how professional athletes utilize their Oura rings, and he shared some examples. For instance, some teams have adjusted their schedules—staying overnight after away games instead of requiring players to sacrifice sleep to travel. He’s also heard of coaches checking in more with their athletes about how they’re feeling or gauging their fatigue levels through the metrics provided by the app.

So, do you really need the Oura ring, or any tracker for that matter, to implement these practices? I’d argue you don’t. You can still take a thoughtful approach to your sleep and training without the daily scores from an app. However, I do appreciate the detailed information the Oura ring provides. It’s not essential, but it certainly adds value.

One important note

We mentioned years ago that while sleep tracking devices are usually good at detecting when you’re asleep, they often struggle to differentiate between the various stages of sleep. By 2021, the technology had improved, and many experts have told me that Oura is now considered the most accurate among consumer sleep tracking gadgets. However, that doesn't mean it's flawless.

One example of this is in my REM sleep scores. I generally sleep well and feel rested during the day, and my Oura app sleep score is usually pretty good. However, one component of that score is how much REM sleep the app detects, and my REM sleep is consistently marked in the red. A normal amount of REM sleep is 20-25% of your total sleep, which for me should be about an hour and a half to two hours. Instead, I typically average about 30 minutes, with some nights showing as little as 13 minutes, 11 minutes, or even 3 minutes.

Amy Bender, the sleep expert, reassured me when I brought this up. “I guarantee that if we hooked you up to an EEG [electroencephalography] machine, you’d have shown more REM sleep than that. I’ve reviewed probably a thousand sleep studies using EEG, and I’ve never seen anyone with just 3% REM.”

Interestingly, when I added the Whoop band to my experiment, it told me I was getting an unusually high amount of REM sleep. Before this, I had wondered if I was an outlier who could survive on minimal REM, but now I’m fairly confident that the two apps simply use different algorithms to estimate when you’re in each sleep stage. I’ll never again worry about my specific amount of REM sleep.