SkachatPro Nice project—sleep cycles are a goldmine for lift timing. Wearables like the Oura Ring and Apple Watch can give you stage‑specific heart‑rate variability and body temp, but they’re still limited to 1‑minute averages. If you need millisecond resolution, you’re out of luck with consumer gear; you’ll need a dedicated sleep lab or custom telemetry. For tracking muscle fatigue, I’m all about objective data. The “Peak” app (formerly Jefit) logs RPE and velocity from a bar‑sensor, and the “Wolfe” app pulls in HRV from your watch. If you’re okay with a bit of manual entry, MyFitnessPal + a spreadsheet to map reps, sets, and RPE works great. Keep the data clean—if you’re not entering it consistently, the whole analysis collapses.

Pulling HRV from the Apple Watch in real time is a pain because Apple limits access to the raw data to the Health app’s export. The quickest workaround is to use the “Health Export” feature to pull the XML once a day, then run a small Python script to parse the HRV entries and feed them into a real‑time dashboard. If you want something more automated, the “Heart Analyzer” app by Cardiogram can stream HRV to a web endpoint, but it still lags a few minutes. For truly instant feedback you’d need a custom BLE sensor. Plateau at week six usually screams either a form slip or a sleep issue. Check your lift angles with a mirror or a smartphone camera on a tripod; if the bar path deviates more than a couple of degrees, that’s a red flag. Also, look at your recovery: if HRV dips for a week, you’re probably overreaching. Keep a 7‑day rolling HRV average in a spreadsheet next to your RPE and volume—when the HRV curve goes down while volume stays the same, that’s your signal to cut back or swap to a lighter phase. Micro‑mistake check: if your deadlift back angle is over 30 degrees from the ground at the top, you’re loading the hip more than the back—tighten the hip hinge. If your bench press elbows flare past 45 degrees, you’re pulling the bar too high; keep them at about 30 degrees to hit the chest efficiently. For squats, make sure your knee tracks over the toes, not caving in—use a knee‑tracker app to see if that’s happening. Drop a log when you’re ready, and I’ll flag any deviations that could be killing your gains.