- Location
- Inside my skull
Does not work in the case of the heart and blood vessels. Blood vessels are not fixed diameter pipes like in heating systems etc. I have a low resting HR and low normal blood pressure.
Resting Heart Rate
- Thread starter wafter
- Start date
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Does not work in the case of the heart and blood vessels. Blood vessels are not fixed diameter pipes like in heating systems etc. I have a low resting HR and low normal blood pressure.
I'm by no means fit (not now anyway) 64 and have a hr as I sit here of 54. It drops to 45 when I'm sleeping - all as measured by my garmin watch. I'm not an athlete, I don't 'have' bradycardia. I've no idea why it is what it is and don't really concern myself with it anymore.
I'm a bit meh about my watch these days. It's useful and does correlate sometimes (though today I woke with a 100% body battery and a 99/100 sleep score - but feel nowhere near that, go figure) but I don't live by it. It's use comes when the numbers (my numbers) change; it can 'predict', and kinda validate, illness.
I'm a bit meh about my watch these days. It's useful and does correlate sometimes (though today I woke with a 100% body battery and a 99/100 sleep score - but feel nowhere near that, go figure) but I don't live by it. It's use comes when the numbers (my numbers) change; it can 'predict', and kinda validate, illness.
midlandsgrimpeur
Über Member
My rhr has never changed from my teens. My average HR for various power zones is lower now though which is a general indicator of improved fitness over the years.
KneesUp
Guru
My resting heart rate is 44 over the past 12 months according to my Garmin watch. I’m in y early 50s, and I thint a lot of my generation never takes their watch off so that’s pretty much 365 days / 24 hours a day. 30 years ago I was riding my bike to work every day in my summer job and used to ride as hard as I could both ways - it was essentially a series of sprints between traffic lights with the occasional long draft behind a bus. I now know that would be classed as 30-40 minutes of fairly hard anaerobic exercise a day (I set off too late most mornings, being a student and all, and I just wanted to get home in the evening but I also used to try and get a higher average speed on my Cateye computer). My mum is a trained medical professional and took my resting hr with her nurses watch and it was mid 20s then. I think some of it must be genetic? I’ve always have some symptoms,of bradycardia (principally lightheartedness when I stand up) but my gp has never questioned it, and even my mum wasn’t that bothered.
ColinJ
Puzzle game procrastinator!
- Location
- Todmorden - Yorks/Lancs border
I thought that I would give you an update after wearing the smartwatch for 3 months...
I started wearing the watch just as I was getting ill. You can clearly see my RHR rising as the illness got worse, and then follow it back down again. It has stabilised at around 52 bpm now and will probably stay there until I lose some more weight and get fitter. I reckon that that it would drop another 5 or 6 bpm if/when I do.
My HR is much lower when I sleep. I am regularly seeing lows of 40-45 bpm when I check my overnight readings.
The watch does reveal how sedentary I am when not cycling or walking to the shops. I found one 2 day spell where my maximum HR was 89 bpm!! I am quite good at making bigger efforts but too damn lazy in between. Which reminds me... I must get up, it is 13:12 on a sunny Sunday!!!
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- Location
- Inside my skull
A couple of years later 😁
Doing the measurement after you’ve woken up, and in same position etc. before you do anything else. It is not about aiming to get the lowest figure you can. It is about consistency, so you can baseline your resting HR range, and from that know if its normal for you or not. Resting heart is affected by what you have been doing, hormones fluctuate throughout the day, post exercise its affected, eating, drinking affects it etc etc. of course sleep could have affected it, but you can note that at the time if so inclined.
- Location
- Inside my skull
Known as postural hypotension
https://www.guysandstthomas.nhs.uk/health-information/postural-hypotension
Drop in blood pressure when you stand up. You can do a test where you measure blood pressure when sitting, then stand up and measure again, and also measure 3 mins after standing up.
You can also do the same with resting HR and HRV, Measure it over a minute sitting, then stand up and also measure for minute. Note the difference between the two, and baseline.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00421-024-05601-4
presta
Legendary Member
My HR used to go from 42-45 sitting in the armchair to 100-110 standing (still). The threshold for a diagnosis of POTS is a rise of more than 30bpm.
Punkawallah
Veteran
You’d best explain ‘resting’ for all the married men out there ;-)
Ajax Bay
Guru
- Location
- East Devon
Stumbled on this thread, and wanted to share how small my measurement was. 
30 down to 28 roughly 20-45yo when I was properly fit (endurance running).
Measured on waking and remaining supine, both by wrist pulse and by my 'new' first gen Polar watch with HRM chest band.
Couple of decades on RHR is low 40s now - sometimes see 180+ keen to make it up a steep chevronned hill.
Max achieved 206 and 207 as recorded HRM in the climax of a sprint to the line: race over 30 minutes first cross country second orienteering.
201 and 199 in an 800 and a 1500 in an afternoon's track meeting - again home straight sprint.
Someone up thread mentioned genes. I don't know whether my parents had a low RHR but my elite athletic daughter does - in low 30s (she says women are typically >5 beats more than men so hers is effectively lower than mine - competitive - elle - 'non'). Will check with our other offspring.
When in ITU for 2 days (punctured lung and other breaks) after a crash (at 199km into a 300) they dialled the alarm threshold right down.
30 down to 28 roughly 20-45yo when I was properly fit (endurance running).
Measured on waking and remaining supine, both by wrist pulse and by my 'new' first gen Polar watch with HRM chest band.
Couple of decades on RHR is low 40s now - sometimes see 180+ keen to make it up a steep chevronned hill.
Max achieved 206 and 207 as recorded HRM in the climax of a sprint to the line: race over 30 minutes first cross country second orienteering.
201 and 199 in an 800 and a 1500 in an afternoon's track meeting - again home straight sprint.
Someone up thread mentioned genes. I don't know whether my parents had a low RHR but my elite athletic daughter does - in low 30s (she says women are typically >5 beats more than men so hers is effectively lower than mine - competitive - elle - 'non'). Will check with our other offspring.
When in ITU for 2 days (punctured lung and other breaks) after a crash (at 199km into a 300) they dialled the alarm threshold right down.
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Rusty Nails
We remember
- Location
- Living in the slow lane
We'll all be that fit eventually.
Punkawallah
Veteran
Speak for yourself :-) All the evidence to date seems to indicate I will, in fact, wake up tomorrow morning. And you can’t argue with the evidence, right?
presta
Legendary Member
By the time the curtains opened an hour or so later he was a lot more chirpy, and sat up in bed with a wire sprouting out of his neck connected to a pacemaker on the bedside table. I spent the afternoon sat on the bed chatting to him, he was a Stirling bomber pilot during the war, and still flying his own Piper Super Cub (but only under supervision, not solo).
