Resting heart rate

R

rs20

0
Hi all,

I have been taking exercise reasonably seriously recently and so have been measuring my resting heart rate etc and was wondering whether this was at all normal.

Basically it seems to depend greatly on when in the day I measure it. When measured just before I go to bed it is usually around 52 ish, but upon waking it is usually at least 10 bpm faster and often reaches 70 ish.

The question is which one is 'true'? And is it normal to have such a varying resting heart rate?

Thanks,

R.
 
Not sure about 'normal', but typically a resting heart rate is taken upon waking and before moving around at all - you want to have been still and don't want your endocrine systems activated, no going to the bathroom or anything, just wake up and take your pulse. Pretty surprising that your heart rate would be lower before bed than upon waking, although if you were sitting quietly for a long time watching tv or on the computer and then just took your pulse, I guess it could get pretty low.
 
There's a number of things that can affect your heart rate. Unless you feel like somethings actually wrong, (heart palpitations, heart pounds TOO hard or long after exercise, or other stuff that you think may be due to some underlying issue) I wouldn't worry about it. Heart rate variance isn't a problem in itself. Maybe you wake up too abruptly (releasing stress hormones or adrenaline or something?).
 
Thanks for the advice.

I do make sure I'm still and resting when taking the measurements... It's not like I wouldn't expect to have a low rate when i measure it in the evening.

I think I may have heard something somewhere about your body giving you a kick of adrenaline in the morning in time with your circadian rhythm but I don't know if this is remotely true.

No otherwise untowards symptoms that I can tell, just weird. Still not sure what to use for fitness applications though. There isn't ever really an option for 'somewhere between 50 and 70'...
 
I do know for a fact that waking up abruptly will release cortisol (the stress hormone) into your system, so it does make sense that adrenaline could be in the mix too. I would suggest you take a heart rate measure one morning when you sleep in and wake up without an alarm.

There really isn't a whole lot, in terms of fitness, that you can apply resting heart rate too. When training, the things to look at are your heart rate ranges for steady-state exercise (ie: during a long run), threshold exercise (just beginning to feel a burn), and maximal heart rate.
 
They are both true.
 
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