As I was standing out in front of my house waiting for my GPS to lock onto the satellite signals I was looking at my heart rate monitor to see what my heart rate was. And right there, just standing and waiting it was reading 50 bpm. I wasn’t sure if it was a fluke so I wiggled the chest strap but the reading stayed at 50 bpm and hasn’t moved. So I knew something was up and my resting heart rate must be even lower than my standing heart rate waiting to start my slow 3 mile recovery run.

I did my 3 miler went to work but I have decided that I would repeat the resting heart rate test from last time to see just where my resting heart rate really stands. I recoded two hours worth of data while asleep, over 5,000 heart beats, and plotted them on a distribution chart similar to the one I did last time. I was shocked! My resting heart rate dropped drastically. I’m not talking about 1-2 beats per minute. I’m taking about over 13 beats towards the low end and over 20 beats at the high end. You can see all this in the comparison chart with my last set of data.

My resting heart rate is in the 30s now. High 30s, closer to 40 actually, but 2% of my heart beats were below 40 for the two hour period. The lowest heart rate that I registered was 32 bpm. During my last test the 2% cutoff was at 52bpm and the lowest heart rate registered was at 46bpm. You can also see that the slope of the distribution graph is a lot more level indicating a more steady resting heart rate. I could bore you with the R-R frequency analysis of the data but the bottom line is that I’m just tickled pink about my new resting heart rate as it converts into greatly improved working zones when it comes to running. My body never seizes to amaze me just how responsive it is to training, exercise and proper diet!

I have actually been measuring my resting heart rate for a couple of weeks now but I have been getting very mixed results. They say the best way to measure your resting heart rate is to measure it first thing in the morning before getting out of bed or doing anything that would make it elevated. And there lies the problem with this method. I am usually awakened against my will by either an alarm clock that my wife sets oh-so-wonderfully 1 hour earlier than needed then resets it two more times before we finally get out of bed. Don’t ask me why she does this, this is part of her morning ritual. I guess she prefers to get an hour warning about when you need to get up and get an hour less of good solid sleep. Sadly this also affects my sleep.

If it’s not the ridiculous alarm clock pattern of my wife that gets me up it’s my daughter crying through the baby monitor. She’s 20 months old and likes to wake with a loud disappointment and she wants to be sure everyone knows that she’s disappointed with having woken up. What I’m trying to say my mornings aren’t exactly relaxed and my morning resting heart rate certainly shows it. Add to it the time and effort I put into putting my heart rate monitor on and starting it up and you can see that my heart rate in the morning is nowhere near my resting heart rate. I’m actually pretty restless by the time I’m taking measurements.

My readings have been all the way up to 69 bpm in the morning and as low as 60 bpm. Your resting heart rate will fluctuate between days depending on how well you have recovered from the previous day’s exercise or it can also be higher if you’re fighting off some kind of illness or there is an onset of one. So your morning resting heart rate should tell you a lot and is a good indication of what to look forward to in the day in terms of actual energy level and fitness.

While my morning readings have been all over the map my readings with the heart rate monitor at night sitting in front of the computer have been pretty steady. I’d be clocking in around 53-55 bpm which is a lot lower than my morning heart rate. So which one is my true resting heart rate? I thought the only way to find out was to actually measure my heart rate while totally resting; measure it while asleep.

So I spent last night with my heart rate monitor strapped on and I logged the entire night’s data, every single beat of my heart for close to 5 hours. I didn’t get enough sleep last night but I got enough data to draw my conclusion. It was actually quite interesting to see my heart rate change over the course of the night. My heart rate had random spikes all the way up to 90 bpm at times and I also had a time period where my average heart rate was higher than everywhere else. Also, the close it has gotten to the morning the higher it went and the more noisy it was.

I have counted and ordered every single beat’s rate and put them on a distribution chart.

You can see that while my heart rate was all over the map and went as low as 38 and as high as 90+ it was pretty linear distribution in the 50-57 bpm range. From this I conclude t hat my resting heart rate is right around 52 bpm. Obviously this number changes from day to day but it is a good general ballpark and is certainly better than my morning rate of 69 at times. It is also much closer to my heart rate while I’m working on the computer indicating that my mornings are probably too stressful to get a good reading on my resting heart rate.