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You might catch your heart rate rising as you work through a long ride or notice how it spikes during a sprint interval or hill climb. But how fast your heart beats at rest, a.k.a. your resting heart rate, can be strong indicator of your health and your fitness level.
Many wearables take resting heart rate into account when calculating recovery stats or sleep scores, as it shows your body back at baseline. So while heart rate training zones may inform you when you push it or pull back in a specific workout, your resting heart rate can also give insight into when to train hard and when to go easy.
To learn more about this health metric, here’s your guide to resting heart rate, including how to find your base number, how to lower your resting heart rate, and more.
What is resting heart rate and what should it be?
Your resting heart rate (or RHR) is the number of times your heart beats per minute when you’re sitting or lying down, i.e., when you are not involved in any activity.
The best time to calculate your RHR is first thing in the morning, before you get out of bed and start moving around, Tom Holland, an exercise physiologist, certified strength and conditioning specialist, and certified sports nutritionist tells Bicycling.
You can measure RHR the old-school way: Lightly press your index and middle fingers to the opposite wrist, just below the base of the thumb, counting the number of beats in 15 seconds, and multiplying that by four.
You can also use a fitness tracker, or get more accurate numbers with a chest strap, says Holland.
When it comes to resting heart rate, “the number that you’ll see over and over is 60 to 100, so it’s a pretty wide range,” says Eli Friedman, M.D., medical director of sports cardiology at Baptist Health’s Miami Cardiac & Vascular Institute.
In the medical world, a resting heart rate faster than 100 beats per minute is known as tachycardia, while a resting heart rate slower than 60 beats per minute is considered bradycardia, he adds. (Keep in mind that high and low resting heart rates might have medical names, but that doesn’t always mean you need to address the issue.)
It’s totally normal for athletes—people who engage in exercise at higher volumes and higher intensities—to have lower heart rates, Friedman says. He often sets resting heart rates to between 30 and 50 bpm, which is where many athletes fall. An athlete’s resting heart rate is usually only considered too low when they’re experiencing symptoms like fatigue, dizziness, and weakness.
If your resting heart rate is high and you experience symptoms like shortness of breath, dizziness, weakness, palpitations (racing heart sensations), or chest pain, then it’s time to see a doctor.
It’s important to note that, like almost all metrics, a “normal” resting heart rate really comes down to the individual and what that person sees over time. According to a 2020 study published in PLoS One, RHR can differ from person to person by as much as 70 bpm. So you can’t really compare your own number to your best friend and think yours is too high or low by their standards.
Why does resting heart rate matter for athletes?
A low resting heart rate is a hallmark of cardiovascular fitness and efficiency, says Friedman. On the flip side, a higher resting heart rate has been associated with a higher risk of cardiac events like strokes and heart attacks.
“When you engage in exercise, your heart rate speeds up so it’s able to feed all the various muscles and organ systems at work with enough blood,” Friedman explains. That’s a good thing, because just like your quads and calves, the heart is a muscle that can become more efficient and stronger with exercise.
“The stronger your heart muscle is, the more blood it can pump out with every contraction,” Holland explains. When the amount of blood ejected with each heart stroke (a.k.a. stroke volume) increases, the heart can beat less while still supplying the same amount of blood to the body. Resting heart rate lowers predominantly after stroke volume increases.
Here’s how that stronger heart muscle and increased stroke volume pays off in your workouts: During exercise, your heart rate will be lower at given intensities, says Holland. That means you’ll be able to produce more output, or watts, at a lower effort level. Instead of feeling like you’re going to die a quarter of the way up a hill, you might not start huffing and puffing until you’re three-quarters of the way there.
Plus, if you’re pumping out more blood with each contraction of the heart muscle, that means you’re delivering more oxygen and nutrients to the muscles with every heartbeat (in addition to removing carbon dioxide and other metabolic waste products from the cells), says Holland—another factor that contributes to efficiency.
In other words, the more you train your cardiovascular system, the lower your heart rate will become during similar efforts so you can continue to go longer or faster.
How can you lower your resting heart rate?
Your resting heart rate is affected by your age, gender, health issues (like diabetes or high cholesterol), medications, fitness and activity levels, emotions, and even external conditions (like altitude or temperature). It’s totally normal for it to fluctuate to some degree.
The number-one way to lower your resting heart rate is exercise. Don’t think of it as a goal of exercise, though, as it’s actually a byproduct: The fitter you get, the lower your resting heart rate will get.
Varying your workouts is important for that lower heart rate. “Endurance training helps your body develop greater capillary density [the number of capillaries in a certain area of muscle] and increases the number and density of mitochondria [the powerhouse of your cells, where fuel is turned into energy],” says Holland. But interval training, where you’re getting close to your max heart rate, stresses your body to the point where it must adapt (read: get stronger), says Friedman.
If you’re already hitting the recommended physical activity guidelines and your heart rate is still high, then you might need to look into lifestyle changes. (Those guidelines mean you hit 150 to 300 minutes a week of moderate-intensity physical activity or 75 to 150 minutes a week of vigorous-intensity physical activity, or an equivalent combination of the two.)
Stress can be a major reason for a higher resting heart rate, because it triggers your body’s “fight or flight” response. Chronic stress, which keeps your system flooded with cortisol, has been linked to increased cardiovascular events, so managing stress is a crucial part of heart health. An illness, like COVID-19, may also increase your resting heart rate.
Stimulants like caffeine, alcohol, and tobacco can also drive your heart rate up, says Friedman. If you have concerns about your resting heart rate, minimizing those or cutting them out entirely could lead to big changes.
Staying hydrated is also important, says Friedman; when you’re dehydrated, your blood thickens, which means your heart has to work harder to pump it out. And, of course, you should prioritize a good night’s sleep: Even short-term sleep deprivation can lead to a significant increase in heart rate, research presented at the 2016 annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America found.
The good news: You should be doing all of these things already, because they’re the tenets of healthy living. And, if you’re not, you can start to implement small changes—say, cutting back on the number of drinks you have per week, or going to bed an hour earlier each night.
Just remember that the occasional spike in resting heart rate isn’t cause for alarm. Your resting heart rate is a baseline measurement, and it can be affected by a number of things on a day-to-day basis.
The key with any health metric—especially those you’re tracking via wearable technology—is paying attention to patterns. “Once you start getting multiple data points (from checking your resting heart rate every morning),” says Holland, “you can figure out what’s normal for you and when something is out of that norm.”
Tamanna K. Singh, M.D., is a board-certified adult clinical and sports cardiologist and RRCA-certified run coach. She earned her medical degree from Boston University School of Medicine and completed her Internal Medicine Residency at Boston Medical Center. She completed her Cardiovascular Medicine fellowship at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York and her specialty training in Sports Cardiology at Massachusetts General Hospital. She is currently the codirector of the Sports Cardiology Center at Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio and assistant professor of medicine at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University. To date, she has held several council roles with the American College of Cardiology (ACC). As a sports cardiologist, Dr. Singh provides cardiovascular care for professional, competitive, and recreational athletes and describes herself as an advocate for safe participation in sports. Media and print contributions include the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, and others. Outside of her profession, she enjoys running marathons, hitting the weights in the gym, playing sous-chef to her wonderful husband while cooking plant-based meals, and playing with her four beautiful dogs.
