resting heart rate

That would be your ambient heart rate and not your resting heart rate. Ambient heart rate is that measurement taken when you are sitting, relaxed and sedentary.

 

OK what does heart rate mean, exactly? My husband took mine right after I did a few mins on the exercise bike, and it was 80. He said its fine, but what does that mean? I dont know what it is when I'm not exercising/just waking up. Is it higher when you get older (I'm a 44 yr old woman).

 

heart rate is the speed at which your heart beats and gives an indication of how much blood is being pumped around your body. it speeds up as the intensity of exercise gets harder, as blood carries oxygen in the form of oxyhaemoglobin. the limiting factor in exercise lasting lnger than ~ 90-secs is the amount of oxygen that we can get to and use by our muscles. as the intensity increases we we demand more oxygen, which requires our hearts to beat faster to pump more blood around the body. the oxygen is then 'picked up' for the cells and organs, with the majority being picked up and used by the leg muscles when cycling. the deoxygenated blood is then pumped back, going through our lungs where we expel carbon dioxide and breathe inmore oxygen where it diffuses through the lungs into our blood and then goes on its journey once more.

ric

 

I get confused between heart rate and IQ. Mine are both around 60.

I used to stress that my resting heart rate was too high for someone who's been riding so long, but it doesn't seem to hurt my performance too much. The odd thing is that my max isn't very high unless I'm REALLY hammering up a long, steep climb (or trying to catch a freind who's ahead of me).

It is what it is.

 

Out of interest, how do you guys take your resting heart rates in the morning? Do you strap on a monitor or simply use your finger? I tried this morning but was already stressed from waking up early for a spinning class (thus giving a reading of anywhere between 60-72)... Considering my resting (sorry, ambient!) rate at my desk can get below 60 this was obviously not right .


Secondly, does anyone have experience of taking resting heart rates where one has ectopic beats? Makes me think my resting rate would be relatively higher (assuming my HRM is picking them up?), whereas, given they go away under exercise this would ruin attempts to try very specific heart rate exercises..

 

Curiously, my resting heart rate sitting is the same as my lowest morning heartrate just after waking up, although I'm not too great here at about 47 bpm and usually more like 50 bpm.

 

I put it on a second ago and it read 48 then dropped to 29 and held there for 5 seconds However I am going to assume it's a glitch! I am going to watch the Olympics and watch my HR. So far I sitting here for 5 minutes it droped to 43bpm watching it. I notice I can get it to lower if I watch it and think of it lowering. I can also get it up to 185bpm and hold it for quite a while and after drafting cars to keep with them, after backing off by and then checking my HR the highest I've seen has been 196bpm. I've got to mount it on the bike though so I can check it when I'm pumping away!
I haven't voted yet However.

 

82, based on sitting here at my PC doing a little programming. Hardly strenuous activity, since I just solved a bug. Probably higher 20 minutes ago ;-)

I just started riding again recently, and taking the stairs instead of the elevator at work. Curious what it will be in a month.

 

Im 15 and my resting heart rate is 65 right when I wake up I am wondering if this is good bad or average for my age.

 

It's a healthy heart rate, although I don't know if it's about average or "better" than average. Most of the people here seem to have very strong cardiovascular systems, so, while 65 may look "bad" here, it really isn't.

 

65... some of the riders in the TdF have resting HRs around this level...

ric

 

I suppose, but it seems that in general, people-cyclists in this case, who have very strong CV system have low(er) resting heart rates. Is that an incorrect statement? I guess it re-enforces the fact that no one factor can absolutely determine how strong an athlete a person is/will be.

I was just being concise.

 

as you get fitter your RHR does decrease but the absolute value doesn't say much about you. for e.g., mines 44 b/min but i'm not fitter than the pros who have a higher resting HR than me.

 

I was even more shocked when I realized I was at 52 bpm after using a crosstrainer bike on level 3 workouts at ifit.com for 2 months 6 days a week. I started on 30 minute workouts and am on 45 minutes now and find the pace and resistance challenging My cycling buddy told me he was in the 40's and I couldn't believe it but I do now.

 

Knowing people's resting HR doesn't tell you anything unless you know their age. I'd suggest modifying your poll so it also asks the respondent's age, then group the results in 10-year increments (age 20-30, 30-40, etc). I'm 50 and have a resting HR of 55. I ride about 100-125 miles a week, try to do speed intervals once a week, do a long ride once a week at 70-80% of max HR, and the rest of the time ride about an hour at about 80% of my max. Also take a day off each week.

 

I get litlle bit confused when i relax saturday morning, 33-35 was resting rate.

 

This site puts it in perspective http://yalenewhavenhealth.org/library/healthguide/en-us/medicaltests/topic.asp?hwid=support/aa25322

 

If you want to do something with the figures it also doesn't mean much unless you take into account their state of fitness.

Maybe he just wanted to find out what the range of resting heart rate was among people in the forum who could be bothered to answer the poll. In that case he has exactly the results he wanted.

 

I found this neat little heart rate monitor.

6102 Cardio™ Heart Rate Monitor
http://www.tanita.com/Handheld.shtml#

Found one online for $20. Keep it on my bedside table and use it when I wake up.

 

I'm 51 and have a resting HR of 54. I ride about 175-200 miles a week, riding to and from work an hour each way and at least one longer ride on the weekend. I also do outrigger paddling 2x a week, 1.5 hours each time.

Can you please tell me what this means?