What's your resting heart rate?

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Rob3rt

Man or Moose!
Location
Manchester
56-58bpm. Taken manually (counting pulse on right wrist not using HRM) 1st thing in morning when waking up in bed.
 

Garz

Squat Member
Location
Down
For me I done a proper vegetative state lying in bed and got it down to 44bpm, when pootling around the house its around 60-70. Im taking this is what LD is referring to as they are clearly different readings.
 

Garz

Squat Member
Location
Down
For me I done a proper vegetative state lying in bed and got it down to 44bpm, when pootling around the house its around 60-70. Im taking this is what LD is referring to as they are clearly different readings.
 

youngoldbloke

The older I get, the faster I used to be ...
Quote:
Originally Posted by lukesdad
Dont confuse resting H/R with waking H/R they indicate 2 different things.

Bill Gates said:
What's the difference?

Anyone got a definitive answer to this? Here are 3 results taken almost at random from a search for 'resting heart rate':

Its important to remember that the best time to take this test is first thing in the morning, when you awake, as simply getting up and walking around your bedroom will cause your heart rate to rise, with other factors such as smoking or caffeine, also causing an increase.
(Netfit)

This is a person's heart rate at rest. The best time to find out your resting heart rate is in the morning, after a good night's sleep, and before you get out of bed. (American Heart Association)

To determine your resting heart rate (RHR) is very easy. Find somewhere nice and quiet, lie down and relax. Position a watch or clock where you can clearly see it whilst lying down. After 20 minutes determine your resting pulse rate (beats/min). Use this value as your RHR. (BrianMac Sports Coach)


- and so on ....

(Garz - it is certainly NOT your pootling around the house measurement)
 

lukesdad

Guest
Bill Gates said:
What's the difference?

The difference is simple rhr is when you rest after any activity and should be taken as you indicate 2o mins etc. Whr is when you wake up before you partake in any activity, I thought it was quite obvious.

The first indicates your fitness level the second indicates impending problems you may have during the day due to the night or day before I.e bad nights sleep or some activity eating etc. Or impending illness.
 

doyler78

Well-Known Member
Location
Co Down, Ireland
lukesdad said:
The difference is simple rhr is when you rest after any activity and should be taken as you indicate 2o mins etc. Whr is when you wake up before you partake in any activity, I thought it was quite obvious.

The first indicates your fitness level the second indicates impending problems you may have during the day due to the night or day before I.e bad nights sleep or some activity eating etc. Or impending illness.

I would have to disagree with your contention. My "waking heart rate" rises and falls with my level of fitness and I have many years of heart rate data which confirms that. For instance a few years ago when I was unable to ride for several months because of physical injury (hip, knee & ankle problems and not a cardio/respiratory/viral illness as I presume you mean when you say illness) my "waking heart rate" went from 39bpm to 54bpm (or thereabouts). It took months of training before I got my resting heart rate down to that level again. Have you any such data yourself which shows that after a period of detraining that your "waking heart rate" did not rise and did not fall back as you regained fitness?

I find the slapdown for not understanding the difference between waking & resting heart rate interesting because it just seems to me that I cannot think of a time when I am more likely to be in a more rested non sleep state than when I have just woken up.

I haven't a clue why anyone would want to conduct a test in those circumstances myself. I can understand why they would want to know recovery rate ie resting heart rate at normal activity levels so that you can see how well you recover from physical exertion and that is certainly another measure of fitness however it doesn't replace or negate the usefulness of "waking heart rate" or as I more commonly know it as "morning resting heart rate".

Just what my use of heart rate training has taught me, however incorrect that may be. I now use power, much less ambiguity but I still measure my mrhr as it does warn me sometimes that illness may be coming. I use power data now to assess training stress so not so bothered about trying to predict overtraining from mrhr these days either although an elevated mrhr can indicate overtraining too.

Much more useful a number than maxHR in my opinion.
 

lukesdad

Guest
Of course your waking hr will increase during a lay off as will your rhr it is only to be expected. Waking hr is only usefull if you take it every day. I would only check my Rhr once amonth.
 

doyler78

Well-Known Member
Location
Co Down, Ireland
lukesdad said:
Of course your waking hr will increase during a lay off as will your rhr it is only to be expected. Waking hr is only usefull if you take it every day. I would only check my Rhr once amonth.

So waking heart rate can be used to track changes in fitness because that's not what you said in the post I was responding to or at least that is the impression that you gave as you went to pains to point out the differences between the two methods.

Why does it have to be done everyday in order to be useful and if it does how is your system any better? Surely it is subject to the same issues of general heart rate variability due to external issues such as stress, illness, heat, etc.

I know that if I haven't slept well the night before I know my heart rate as I'm walking up to the gym floor is probably going to be higher than it normally is when I am well rested equally that is reflected in my waking heart rate however I know if I have had a bad nights sleep so I can filter the data I get for that.

To use it to predict illness/overtraining would certainly require frequent testing however fitness less so for the very reason you gave above ie fitness doesn't increase or decline in a day (or not in a manner that we can appreciate).
 
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