What are optimal health biometrics?

By using your biometrics data as a guide, you'll get fit faster. And stay that way with less effort. 

Health biometrics data is your unbiased compass that can guide every decision you make in the gym, kitchen, and in your everyday life. 

Biometrics are your most reliable health and fitness markers

Because biometrics are objective, they don't rely on your opinions of how your day went. It is hard data. And it doesn't lie.

Everything you do in your training and life should first improve and then maintain optimal biometrics. Using biometrics as your guide means that you're always doing what's best for your health and performance.

Biometrics allow you to achieve your results faster

Tracking biometrics will give you insights into how your training, diet and overall lifestyle affect your wellbeing. 

If your biometrics are trending down, you can take action immediately. Instead of waiting for physical symptoms. And when your biometrics are trending up, you can be confident that whatever you're doing is working.

The health biometrics we care about

To achieve and maintain optimal health biometrics require a balanced relationship between your fitness, strength, biomechanics, habits and lifestyle. If one aspect of your overall wellbeing is lagging, it’ll show in the biometrics.

There’s a long list of biometrics you could choose from. But we recommend everyone to track:

• Blood pressure
• Waist to hip ratio
• Resting heart rate
• Heart rate variability
• Vitamin D
• Body fat percentage

You don’t have to track all of them. But the more data points you have, the easier it is to see trends between them and how they correlate with your overall wellbeing and performance.

Tracking biometrics

You can connect most of the health and fitness trackers with Optimal Humans app. Alternatively, you can manually import your data in the app.

You can also use MyFitnessPal to track your diet in more detail.

Benchmarks for optimal biometrics

Blood pressure: 120/80 mmHg 

Blood pressure as low as 90/60 mmHg can also be a sign of good health in some people. Especially in women and those with a fit cardiovascular system. Provided it doesn’t cause lightheadedness, or other adverse symptoms.

Waist to Hip ratio: women 0.85, men 0.90

Contrary to the current fitness trend of narrow waist and wide hips in women, it is not optimal for health. 

Resting heart rate: 55 - 63 beats per minute

Heart rate variability: it depends

Unlike resting heart rate, it’s difficult to establish universal benchmarks for heart rate variability (HRV). There are too many variables to count for. Your physical and mental health play a part, as do age, gender, and your fitness level. 

There is some data on elite level athletes, but things get a bit more complicated for those who are not at the elite level.

What we recommend is to track your HRV for a few weeks and establish an average for your baseline. You can then compare your progress and your day-to-day HRV against this average. The higher your number, the better. 

Pay attention to any significant drops in your HRV, either sudden or gradual. This is a sign of increased sympathetic (flight or fight) response. Usually because of poor sleep, over-training, chronic stress or an illness.

Vitamin D: 50 - 120 nanomoles per liter (nmol/l) or 20 - 50 nanograms per milliliter (ng/ml)

Body fat percentage: depends on age and gender

Summary

Everything you do in your training and life should first improve and then maintain optimal biometrics. Using biometrics as your guide means that you're always doing what's best for your health and performance.

If your biometrics are trending down, you can take action immediately. Instead of waiting for physical symptoms. And when your biometrics are trending up, you can be confident that whatever you're doing is working.

By using your biometrics data as a guide, you'll get fit faster. And stay that way with less effort.