Very low resting heart rate: any advice?!

[thespecialk]

Hello fellow fitbitters!

So I am new to fitbit and just got mine today. I looked at the charts and for a female athelete that is my age (29) should be between 54 - 59. However, whenever I am sitting down and resting (watching neflix, proof reading or reading a book for leisure) it is 48/49?

I swim three times a week (about 40/50 minutes of moderate / high intensity). The other three days I do a cardio / strength workout ranging between 25 - 40 minutes. I take one day off (Saturdays). I also cycle about 20 - 30 minutes every day (to and from college and also to the swimming pool.

Does anyone think that this is cause for concern? I have been told when I was a teenager that I have low blood pressure - I always get very cold whenever I sit down and don't move for a while (I always have to wear about a million layers in the winter!!). Any and all advice welcome 🙂

[JohnRi · Accepted solution]

First of all if you are concerned about it, you should talk to a doctor about it. 

That aside, I don't think you have anything to worry about it.  Trained athletes can have resting heart rates in the 40's, some in the 30's.  Based on your exercise, I'd say your are definately an athlete.

As for low blood pressure, it is treatable by medications, or you can simply do the things doctors tell you not to do.  Eat lots of sodium will elevate your blood pressure.  I used have a problem of my arms falling asleep if over my head, legs falling asleep if crossed too long...  BIG WARNING sign I missed when that stopped happening...  Now that my BP is normal again, having those problems again.

Realistically, besides being cold, as long as your low blood pressure doesn't affect you, it's probably not a big deal.  Do you get dizzy when you suddenly stand up, fainting, lightheadness....  If you answered no, then as long as you don't have any issues, it's probably not a problem. If you answer yes, you should see a doctor to find out why your pressure is so low. Before I got off my blood pressure meds, when I stop up too fast I got dizzy, or lightheaded.  Almost past out once.  My BP was around 85/65...  Now that I'm off the med, BP is around 120/80.  This after losing 30 lbs...  Now I've lost 43 lbs, and I have 63 to go...

As long as you don't have symptoms, you should live a very long life.  Keep it up!!!

As always seek a professional to confirm your issues are nothing to worry about, but I'm pretty sure you are ok.

[emili]

my advice is to keep doing what you're doing because you are doing OK. low heart rate means you are working efficiently to be alive. awesome. kudos.

[BohemianFit]

I also have a very low resting heart rate and low blood pressure (99/65). In terms of exercise, if you're looking to get into certain 'zones', its less about aiming for a specific number and more about how much you increase from your resting. I occasionally get light headed when I stand up too fast and my hands and feet are always cold but my doctors have always commented on my BP being great. 

I would not suggest adding sodium just to boost your blood pressure. It sounds like your 'normal' is just lower than others. That said, I wouldn't worry about avoiding salt too much. 

[Dominique]

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@thespecialk wrote:

Any and all advice welcome 🙂 

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My advice if you have any reason to believe you may have a heart condition would be to consult with a cardiologist. A heart rate monitor is just that, a device that tells you about your heart rate. It can’t tell you whether it’s too high or too low, and neither can fellow fitbitters.

If you are in good health otherwise and do not experience any particular symptoms when exercising, you probably shouldn’t worry too much about your heart rate. So it’s very low when resting, fine. It would be worrying if it were 100 bpm or more.

[thespecialk]

Thanks everyone for the advice!

In the end the dashboard calucated by daily BPM my resting heart rate at actually 53bpm so I guess the 48/49bpm I see from time to time are not the norm! I had no ideas that athletes could actually be so low as in the 30's! Definitely nothing for me to be worried about! I guess I just saw BMP as being linked to BP somehow (as in the lower BMP you have the lower your blood pressure?) It's probably not linked at all but more coincidental if anything!

I've never been told to do anything about my blood pressure..the doctor never thought it was a problem. Its just so frustrating to be cold all the time and I was concerned it was going to get worse if my BPM was also low!

[shipo]

Sorry for the late entry; just came across a link to this thread in a different thread...

Back when I was in my teens and twenties, my resting heart rate would hover in the low 30s and occasionally dip into the high 20s; then life happened and I got old and rather out of shape.  I've been working my way back into some semblance of shape over the last three years and now, at the age of 59 I have an RHR (per my Fitbit Surge) in the low 40s and mid 30s while I'm sleeping.

I had a medical professional tell me I wasn't qualified for my company's health care discount due to my "Bradycardia" (low heart rate) saying, "Healthy low heart rates only apply to young and highly trained athletes."  Fortunately I appealed to a higher power who agreed with me it was okay to be old, an athlete, and have a slow heart rate.

Long story short, if you're athletic and have a low heart rate, enjoy it!  🙂

[thespecialk]

hey shipo 🙂

You must have been so fit when you were younger to have such a low BPM! I guess also very fit now that you are older 🙂 Actually now that I have had the fitbit for a while my average HR goes between 45 - 50 bpm each month. At night it dips down into the late 30's. 

To be honest I have never considered myself an athelete because I had a vision of what an athlete was supposed to look like and the exercises they were supposed to do (i.e. marathon runners and olymic swimmers that kind of thing!). I've lost a lot of weight over the last months and am quite fit but I am still not sure if I can consider myself as being an athlete yet 😉 Maybe my average BPM should make me reconsider!

[shipo]

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@thespecialk wrote:

hey shipo 🙂

You must have been so fit when you were younger to have such a low BPM! I guess also very fit now that you are older 🙂 Actually now that I have had the fitbit for a while my average HR goes between 45 - 50 bpm each month. At night it dips down into the late 30's. 

To be honest I have never considered myself an athelete because I had a vision of what an athlete was supposed to look like and the exercises they were supposed to do (i.e. marathon runners and olymic swimmers that kind of thing!). I've lost a lot of weight over the last months and am quite fit but I am still not sure if I can consider myself as being an athlete yet 😉 Maybe my average BPM should make me reconsider!

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Trust me, nobody who looks at me thinks, "Athlete".  I do some road races every year and it isn't uncommon for someone coming across the line, behind me, so give me the visual once over and say something like, "How old are you?"  I tell them and then they say, "But your not..., uhhh, you don't look like a runner."

It can actually be kind of fun looking like a chunky old man and still tearing up a race course; I did a very hilly 10-Mile race last summer with about 1,000' of climbing, and as luck would have it, the official race photographers happened to snap a series of pictures of both me and a guy in his early thirties who was fully decked out with rippling muscles, at least a six-pack in his abs, lots of tats and piercings, and oh my did he have the accessories going, everything from a Camelback to various monitors, sweat bands, visors, a utility belt with goo and such, sun glases, fancy shoes, you name it, he had it.  By the half way mark he had a pretty comfortable four minute lead over me, but hey, us fat old men take a while to get rolling.  There is a three shot sequence nearing the finish line; shot 1, from the east side of the course shows him all alone sailing for the finish line, shot 2, from the west side of the course shows none other than the fat old man about 10 paces off his left shoulder, and shot 3 shows me beating him across the line by about two strides with the clock showing 1:19:16.

His running club was razzing him something fierce.  😛

[thespecialk]

Thats such a fantastic story.. it really made me smile! You make a very good point on the image imposed on us about what an athlete should look like, which I suppose to a large extent is pushed on us much in the same way beauty ideals are pushed on women by the fashion industry. Its very inspiring to see that age is no barrier for being so physically fit (or an athlete 🙂 )!

I'm Irish but have lived in the Netherlands for a number of years and its not uncommon over here to see an 80 year old sail past you when cycling! I have had the same when I first got into jogging & was huffing and puffing along. Of course they hadn't even broken a sweat!

[shipo]

Your comments about the 80 year olds in Holland made me laugh; I've cycled over there and it is pretty humbling to be riding a nice bike only to have a little old lady blow past you on a "city bike".  😛

You also reminded me of a race I ran back in 2014; it was a five-miler with a rib and beer fest at the finish.  As I mentioned earlier, I start races slow, as I was working my way up through the crowd I caught up to a "little old lady" at the half-way point.  We were climbing a hill and I came up next to her and told her she was looking good and strong; we chatted for maybe a quarter of a mile and then I went on my merry way.

I was curious how she'd do so I waited for her at the finish line; she crossed in something like 38:04!  After grabbing a beer and a few ribs I found her again, beer in hand, and we chatted a bit more; I was stunned to find out she was 70 years old!  I told her she was my new hero.  🙂

[CallieM]

@shipo @thespecialk I am loving your stories on this thread - you are such great storytellers! I think you should create a new thread for stories on "Share Your Story" (only if you'd like, of course!) I personally am really enjoying them so I'm sure others would too! They paint such detailed pictures in my mind 🙂 

@JohnRi @emili @BohemianFit @Dominique thanks for all of your input and advice on this thread!

On a personal level, I ran track and cross-country in college, and I also have a lower resting heart rate. @thespecialk if I could recommend one thing that's made a difference in not getting light-headed when standing up is to make sure you're hydrated and fed! These two things really make a difference for me - I especially notice myself feeling very dizzy and 'off' when I have had less than a bottle of water in a day. Just my personal experience!

[brerbill]

Also, for older folks (I'll be 70 soon) - a year ago I stood up one day and got lightheaded, and was subsequently diagnosed with a-fib. It's controlled with medication, so fortunately, I can still exercise as much as I want. But yes, staying hydrated is critical for successful workouts. I've found that drinking extra water/sports drinks the day before racing or a hard workout, for example, is helpful as well.

And I'm in the low resting heart rate group as well (34-44), which is simply my 'normal'. Actually, I'd rather be able to run faster and have a more normal RHR - this sounds good to me! 

[shipo]

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@brerbill wrote:

Also, for older folks (I'll be 70 soon) - a year ago I stood up one day and got lightheaded, and was subsequently diagnosed with a-fib. It's controlled with medication, so fortunately, I can still exercise as much as I want. But yes, staying hydrated is critical for successful workouts. I've found that drinking extra water/sports drinks the day before racing or a hard workout, for example, is helpful as well.

And I'm in the low resting heart rate group as well (34-44), which is simply my 'normal'. Actually, I'd rather be able to run faster and have a more normal RHR - this sounds good to me! 

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Interesting, you have a low RHR and yet were diagnosed with A-Fib?  Can't say I've ever heard of that before.  What was your diagnosis and what medication have you been prescribe.

[Doodah]

I'm new to this forum and just came across your message re AF and RHR.

Well, I have AF, and yes my RHR was about 40 – that is before I got into my routine medication.  In the past I had been training hard every day till laziness and business got in the way.  Nowadays I'm trying to get fit after a heart attack and AF, so I'm yet to discover whether my RHR is going to start back down to where it was in the old days.

But, I'm also aware that there's more than one reason why one's RHR might be slow.  So, I hope you've already bullied your overworked GP into thoroughly checking that in your case there's no other cause involved (I'm sure there isn't but it's worth being careful, eh?).

I hope you're having fun with the training.  Best of luck.

[shipo]

Up until last year my GP was a budding cardiologist; then last year he made the jump to a new medical system as a fully frocked cardiologist; good for him, but I'm not so pleased with his replacement.  😞

Prior to making the jump he ran several EKGs on me, "just because", and basically told me my low heart rate was good and I should keep doing what I've been doing.  That said, my younger soon to be 58 year old brother has been in afib for five or six years now so I suppose it is something to keep an eye on.

[brerbill]

Well, I was actually surprised my cardiologist wasn't concerned about me running, or that she didn't tell me to stop, or to just walk instead. As far as I know, the only times my low RHR has deviated was during my initial a-fib onset and during a stress test; then my HR was at the other extreme - maybe close to 200 BPM.

As far as the a-fib diagnosis goes, many 'signs and symtoms' are non-specific (as they apparently were in my case), so determination as to which specific conditions contributed are difficult to establish. From my layman's perspective however, older folks - both male and female - are susceptible. Interestingly, one of the medical techs who did a heart scan told me that "everyone will eventually get a-fib if they live long enough", but I don't believe this is true.

After being diagnosed, I volunteered to be in a medical study (to determine if implanting heart recording devices in the doctor's office would be as safe/sterile as having this minor procedure performed in the hospital as had always been the case before). This was important to me because the small recording device could monitor abnormal HR, and send the record cellularly to the doctor and to the manufacturer. Also, the companion key fob  allows me to press a button in case I feel any symptoms coming on - which then begins transmitting data from seven minutes previously. So every time I go for a checkup, company reps and the cardiologist's staff are there with 30-40 pages of data, all pertaining to my heart activity since the last visit, which is quite impressive. I'm not certain how long the study will last, but the implant battery should last about three years. (The device itself is about the size of a 2 inch pencil, and I can feel it just under the skin above the heart). The only two times I'm aware of having a-fib was when it was first diagnosed, and once during a 'stress test' a couple of weeks later. My medication is apparently doing a good job. I don't carry the key fob with me when I run, but I'll discuss this at my checkup next week.

My meds for a-fib are metoprolol 50, and losartan 25 for a somewhat elevated BP (I think that's right).