Tuesday 15 May 2012

Heart rates

For a while now I've been meaning to take a record of my Resting Heart Rate first thing in a morning before I get out of bed. I intend to keep some form of record and use this to see any improvements in my fitness levels.
So last night I made sure my running watch was on the bedside table and this morning I took my HR twice - once from the radial artery and once from the carotid artery - both results were exactly the same.
My RHR is, or was this morning, 56 beats per minute.
Well this information meant nothing to me so I've delved online to find out what it means and what I should be aiming for.
Apparantly the fitter we are the more efficient the heart pumps blood and our resting heart rate reflects this with a lower value.
I found the charts below on THIS website


Men

Age 18-25 26-35 36-45 46-55 56-65 65+
Athlete 49-55 49-54 50-56 50-57 51-56 50-55
Excellent 56-61 55-61 57-62 58-63 57-61 56-61
Good 62-65 62-65 63-66 64-67 62-67 62-65
Above Average 66-69 66-70 67-70 68-71 68-71 66-69
Average 70-73 71-74 71-75 72-76 72-75 70-73
Below Average 74-81 75-81 76-82 77-83 76-81 74-79
Poor 82+ 82+ 83+ 84+ 82+ 80+

 

Women

Age 18-25 26-35 36-45 46-55 56-65 65+
Athlete 54-60 54-59 54-59 54-60 54-59 54-59
Excellent 61-65 60-64 60-64 61-65 60-64 60-64
Good 66-69 65-68 65-69 66-69 65-68 65-68
Above Average 70-73 69-72 70-73 70-73 69-73 69-72
Average 74-78 73-76 74-78 74-77 74-77 73-76
Below Average 79-84 77-82 79-84 78-83 78-83 77-84
Poor 85+ 83+ 85+ 84+ 84+ 84+


Do you see that? Apparantly I have a resting heart rate of an Athlete, go figure!
Of course I'm dubious about this information so I checked other sites online and the answer is pretty much the same - cool huh!

So what is your resting heart rate?

1 comment:

  1. At work at 522, I was at 76 bpm That makes me only average! I will have to do it in the morning too to see if there is any difference.

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