@meresydotes wrote:
@Brad. Yeah, OK, I'm pretty impressed with myself! Actually, that's one of the really cool things I found about Blaze. I can tell when I'm taking a medication that raises your blood pressure/ heart rate, as I'm up between 48-52. When I don't take it for a week, I go down to 45-48. I got really sick a month or so ago, and it shot up to 58. Which was pretty scary, actually.
@meresydotes Hope you are feeling better. Your RHR is lower than normal, are you a long-term runner/biker/swimmer? If not then you were probably born with a low RHR, like my wife. Hers is low enough that her primary care physician had her visit a specialist and she checked out just fine. She uses an app on her phone to check her HR once a week or so, the camera on most smartphone these days does an excellent job at checking your HR.
Changes in RHR shoudn't be scary. Fluctuations in resting heart rate (RHR) is normal, as is a RHR between 60-100bpm:
http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Conditions/More/MyHeartandStrokeNews/All-About-Heart-Rate-Pulse_UCM_43...
@Brad. It is normal for athletes to have 60+ RHR, and some very aerobically fit people (or genetically 'gifted') to have a RHR between 40-60. If you seriously train for endurance sports (running/cycling/swimming/etc), its not surprising to see RHR go down over time, but everyone is different. I've been cycling fast an average of 5+ hours a week for over a year. My RHR when I wake up is in mid 60s, and thats normal. I don't watch my RHR everyday - it will fluctuate based on medications, amount of sleep, illness, etc. Thats normal. Its intellectually interesting to look at it, but generally you can't do much about it. I guess you could make it a game like step counting, but why?
Some interesting data is in the book "Dr. Sheehan on Running" (published 1975):
"The resting pulse rate tells me whether or not I am in an inner harmony, in equilibrium with my various body systems. For me, this is achieved when my pulse rate is 48. But for each individual, it is different. For some athletes in training, it can be quite slow. Tennis player Bjorn Borg amazed an examining physician when his heart rate was recorded at 38 beats per minute. This was also the resting rate of Roger Bannister when he broke the four-minute mile barrier.
On the other hand, Jim Ryun's basal pulse when he ran the mile almost nine seconds faster than Bannister was 72. And many Olympic runners have resting pulse rates in that range. A study of 202 Olympians showed that sprinters have average resting rates of 65, middle distance runners 63, long distance runners 61 and marathon runners 58. This last figure was also the one reported for Clarence DeMar, one of the greatest marathoners of all time. The resting pulse, therefore, simply tells me about my overall fitness. The exercise and post-exercise pulse tell me about my ability to perform and whether at this particular time I can perform up to my maximum."
Hope this makes it clear that RHR isn't a game, everyone is different and even elite athletes have RHR in the normal 60-100bpm range.
If you are getting ready for a big event, say a half-marathon, then keeping track of your RHR (measured when you wake up, not all day long) is one way to predict your fitness level and how well you will perform. If you are sick, well you already know you aren't going to perform as well, not matter if you are tracking RHR or not.
Where RHR can help is as one of several indicators of overtraining with endurance sports (running, cycling, etc). My goal is to enjoy group rides, to go faster and longer without 'hitting a wall.' That means focusing on lactate threshold, and doing intervals to train my body to more effectively deal with build up and to do a better job removing it. Now interval training is hard on the body, and while cycling is easier on the body than pounding the pavement (thats why I don't run), its still hard on the body to go out week after week and do hard Mon/Wed (or Tue/Thur) intervals, and then longer rides on weekends. Sometimes I use RHR to help identify overtraining, but I've found that in my 50s its pretty easy to tell without RHR by how tired I am in the morning. I do feed rides (with HRM) into TrainingPeaks and its a great predictor of overtraining (without RHR) once I figured out *my* training load ramp rates.
In summary the average Fitbit user should not treat RHR like a step goal. With a step goal if you've been sitting in front of a computer all day and only have 3000 steps, you can decide to go for awalk or run. For athletes the RHR is one of several performance predictors, used to prevent overtraining in preparation for an event.
Hope that helps.
Aria, Fitbit MobileTrack on iOS. Previous: Flex, Force, Surge, Blaze
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