Resting Heart Rate

PLEASE CONSULT YOUR PHYSICIAN BEFORE PERFORMING ANY PHYSICAL EXERCISE!

What is “Resting Heart Rate”? What does it mean to you?

Your resting heart rate is your heart rate at rest. What does this mean to you? It means that the lower your resting heart rate is, generally speaking, the more physically fit you are. It also means that you’re heart is working more efficiently than if you had a higher resting heart rate.

The average resting heart rate is somewhere between 60 – 100 beats per minute. The better shape your heart muscle is in, the more efficient it is. When your heart beats, it pumps blood throughout your body. The fewer beats it takes to do this, the stronger the heart will be.

The best way to check your resting heart rate is to check your heart rate first thing in the morning before you get out of bed. This tells you how many times per minute your heart beats when you’re relaxed. Typically, the lower your resting heart rate the better. I like to think of it like this…the more beats per minute your heart beats at rest means that your heart has to work that much harder to make your body run efficiently. The fewer beats per minute your heart beats at rest, means that your heart doesn’t have to work quite as hard to make your body run efficiently.

This is a widely used example, but it’s a great one. Lance Armstrong, Multiple times Tour de France Champion was reported to have a resting heart rate of 32 beats per minute! That’s right, 32 beats per minute! This means that his heart muscle, at the time, was in such great shape that it pumped out enough blood for his entire body almost every other second. That is a model of efficiency! See, the more you exercise the muscle, the better it will perform. He practiced, rode his bike and exercised so much that his heart was the beneficiary of all that hard work, in turn giving him great reserves to draw from while competing.

Obviously, we’re all not Lance Armstrong, but we can exercise our hearts to perform more efficiently than they are now with simple cardiovascular exercise.

How do I check my resting heart rate?

Checking your resting heart rate is simple. First thing in the morning, start with your palm supinated (facing upward). Put two fingers on the thumb side of your wrist. It can be a little tricky, so you may have to move your fingers around a bit to find your pulse. Once you feel your pulse, count the number of beats for 6 seconds (you’ll need a watch or clock with a seconds hand on it). Once you’ve completed the 6 second count, add a zero to the number of beats…this gives you your resting heart rate. So if you get 7 beats in 6 seconds, this means that you have a resting heart rate of 70 beats per minute.

Be aware that there are many reasons your resting heart rate can fluctuate, here are just a few:

- Amount of activity

- Caffeine Consumption

- Change in Body Position (standing or sitting)

- Use of Medication

- Mood

The reason the best time to get your resting heart rate is first thing in the morning is because you haven’t had coffee yet, you haven’t gotten up and starting running around the house getting ready for work or haven’t taken any medication yet…this gives you a true “resting” heart rate.

PLEASE CONSULT YOUR PHYSICIAN BEFORE PERFORMING ANY PHYSICAL EXERCISE!