I woke up in the morning a few days ago and had a stop watch right by my bedside so i decided to test my resting heart rate, first reading i got 40 beats in one minute, i couldnt believe this so i decided to test again and sure enough it was 40 again. Now the amazing thing is that 3 months ago my resting heart rate was 72. During these last 3 months i have been on a cutting diet and have been doing high intensity running for 30 minutes, 4 times per week. The last 3 months is the only time that i have really been doing cardio, and have gone from 14% body fat to 8%. Just to make sure, just today i tested it again (during the day) and got 40 again. Does anyone have a heart rate this low? I just cant believe the difference.
that is great! I actually have a question to propose, and apologize for interupting your thread- but it is related to RHR. I am quite hyperactive- diagnosed with ADHD- and even though I have disciplined myself to concentrate- I cannot discipline my heart rate away. my heart rate upon rising in the morning is moderate- around 50 last time I checked. but by the time I get out of the shower, I can feel the hyperactivity kicking in! I check my heart rate, and it is sky high! 70 or so BPM! Does anyone know what I could do about this? or if it is actually related to my hyperactivity or if it is just the fact that I need to take steps to lower my RHR? Thanks for any advice.
BACK TO THE ORIGINAL TOPIC--- again, sorry for interupting your post... I have always read that low intensity, long duration aerobics is the best for improving blood pressure and heart rate. But you said you do hihg intensity aerobic activity- running to be specific. What exactly is this high intensity? is it a series of sprints with short rests, or an all out run at full capacity for 30 minutes? I am curious because I always found it hard to believe that submaximal stresses would do all that much to improve your hearts efficiency. Again, congrats on your improvements- both your heart and physique. and if you wouldnt mind elaborating on your cardio, I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks.
Well sure, lot’s of people have heart rates that low. Typically though, they are endurance trained athletes. RHR is going to have a certain genetic component, a training component and a stress component. So, genetically, you likely have a relatively large stroke volume (amount of blood pumped per beat), and with training this is exacerbated. The end result is a lower than average RHR. I would expect that when you previously took your RHR, the conditions were not exactly identical, or you were under some stress. I would not expect a 30 bpm drop in 3 months with “relatively” moderate endurance training. The drop in body fat and absolute weight might also contribute as well. The less tissue the heart has to feed with blood, the less it will have to pump. All in all though, a lower heart rate is a good thing.
DA MAN, your heart rate of 70 or so is definitely not high. It’s actually on the better end of the “normal” range. Don’t worry about the fact that it increases when you get up. Again, that’s to be expected. In short, it’s nothing to worry about.
When standing, 70 bpm is not really sky high. It will depend on numerous factors. How stressed or fatigued or hyper you are. But going from a supine RHR to a standing non-active heart rate, I would expect at least a 20 bpm increase. I suspect this value would fluxuate depending on the training you have done the day before.
As far as Slaine’s RHR adaptation to higher intensity aerobic activity. Sustained high intensity running for 30 min would certainly be likely to elicit a reduced resting heart rate. The main factor contributing to reduced resting heart rate is increased stroke volume, as a result of increased plasma volume. Increased plasma volume will occur within a relatively short time-frame 7-10 days. This increased plasma volume results in increased stroke volume, which in turn results in increased cardiac output. Since cardiac output depends on HR and stroke volume, and basal cardiac output requirements will not change much at rest, HR can go down. So, there will be other central and peripheral adaptations that will contribute to a certain extent (eg. increased parasympathetic output, increased metabolic efficiency), but the stroke volume adaptation will happen rapidly in response to high intensity aerobic training.
Thanks, DocT and unknown. I just took my HR, and it was 88bpm. I am noticeably wired, however. lots of sleep last night, good mood, pretty hyper. I have only had exposure to these topics through health classes, and they always told me that anything oover 60bpm was a VERY BAD thing. It doesnt really strike me as odd that they were off, though. Thanks for the info.
Sorry, I forgot to sign the second message. The unknown was Steve McGregor. And I intended to say if you needed anymore clarification to just ask. Have a good T-day.
You are a healthy and efficient mofo! Cool deal. One day, I’ll get mine a bit lower. Right now, I’m usually in the 60-bpm range.
DA MAN, actually whoever taught you that has it ass backwards. The “normal” range we used clinically is 60-100. Anything below 60 is considered bradycardia, or a slow heart rate. Of course, this is quite normal is well trained athletes, so it’s nothing to worry about. Below 60 in a sick elderly person is a quite different story, but something tells me that you’re neither. So, I guess in spite of all my babbling, my point is that 60-100 is considered a normal range though most young, healthy individuals show probably reside on the lower half of that range.
Thank you, DocT. Actually, it was a text book in my college intro to A&P course. Figures, however. Most everything else in that book was dated to the 1950s, or even earlier. 60-100, huh? Well, I feel a ton better now. I greatly appreciate the reply, and the information. And I turn the thread back over to its original owner…
Slaine your low heart rate probably has more to do with your diet and nutrition over these last few months than it does your training. If you’ve been dieting along with taking stimulants you’re slowing down both your thyroid and adrenal functions and both are related to HR. In fact resting HR is often one of the factors used in the diagnosis of hypothyroidism. You’ll probably find your HR will come back up once you start eating normally again
Back when I was kind of into cross country and some other crazy workouts(Swim a half mile, run a mile, swim another half mile without a break) I had a really low HR as well. I had a physical for football, and when the doc read that I had a 42, he asked if I was in shock, on drugs… or dead.
Your heart rate may be reduced due to
increased cardio capacity. Or it may be
reduced due to reduced thyroid output. Or
both. You indicated that in addition to the
cardio, you had significantly reduced
calories, and the combination of reduced cals
- high cardio often causes a reduction in
thyoid production. If it is the cardio that
caused it, that’s good. If it is the thyroid
that caused it, that’s not so good. Try taking
your temperature first thing in the morning,
and if it is significantly below normal, that
might indicate low thyroid. If your waking
body temp is low, you might want to consider
upping your cals for a while to upregulate
thyroid production.
Yep. Mine is 44-48 most of the time if I have been doing any sort of cardio at all. It gets up to the 60s if I slack off for a few months.
My resting heart rate was about 85 before I started cutting for a show last year. after 8 weeks of 5-6 day per week cardio coupled with losing weight my resting heart rate was 60 which is super low for me. Ive heard of someone having 40, it was a female runner friend of mine who did cross country almost year round. Its pretty impressive that yours is down to 40 after 3 months of training cardio and cutting, but i guess you just adapt really well to your training. I wouldnt worry about it… unless you hit the 30’s… Just to be safe I would check with my doc anyway
-Jason
I just took my heart rate and it was 71 beats a minute. Im pretty happy now because I weigh over 300 pounds. Cardio does help.
Didn’t really check my RHR while cutting up for the last 7-8 weeks, but in the few months before that I averaged 80-90 bpm. I never used to be quite that high, I just figured it was because I’m holding a lot more metabolically active tissue (like 44lbs odd more) and my metablism was up as I was eating so much.
Thanks for all the reply’s guys. First off i did HIGH intensity cardio, i almost felt like dying after 30 minutes of running, outside this is. The first few times of the first month i did run, i could not even go for 15 minutes of jogging but i just cant believe how easy it is now to get 30 minutes.Every cardio session i tried improving on my previous time. At times i felt like i was pushing myself so far that by minute 20 i felt like giving up, but i kept pushing even harder, i think i inherited my genes from my mother, i just NEVER give up. I did this 4 times a week, and these cardio sessions were at least 8 hours apart from my weight training workouts. I never ran on an empty stomach which is one reason why i think i hardly lost any muscle within the past 3 months. My calories never dropped below 2200 and i swear i stuffed myself full of vegetables every single day. This is very time consuming cutting them up and all that, but well worth it, your body goes through hell just to extract the little nutrients in such enormous amounts of food. Another thing, believe it or not, i did not have 1 single cheat meal for 3 months, it was all clean, as i said vegetables, low glycemic bread, chicken breast and a ton of egg whites. I broke up with my girlfriend just before i started cutting so i guess that allowed me more time to prepare all the food. I want to compete in some natural bodybuilding contests in the years to come so the past 3 months were an excellent experience.
No kidding, I checked my girlfriends resting heart rate last night (she had been asleep for at least 30 mins) and it was 174 (irregular) beats in a minute. She says she’s been to the doctor and the doc says it’s nowt to worry about, but goddamn I’m worried. It’s like this most of the time too so she says. Next time she comes to my house I’ll measure it properly and her BP also. She’s a fit girl in V good shape BTW. Anyone ever heard of anything like this?
Your GF probably has either PVC (premature ventricular contractions) or atrial fibrillation. PVC’s are often caused if not by a condition known as mitral valve prolapse (ask her if she’s been diagnosed with this heart murmur) then by stress, worry, anxiety people being high strung, excessive stimulants and all other things associated with overstimulation of the sympathetic nervous system. The feeling is that the heart is missing or skipping beats, the HR is typically elevated, and episodes come and go and are not serious. Atrial fibrillation is when the upper chambers of the heart beat in a chaotic pattern. This is a little more serious but still many people live with it only seeking medical attention when it flares up. Supraventricular tachycardia is basically just a “fast heart beat” without any skipped or missed beats and can appear for a variety of reasons.