How to find resting heart rate

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mountainmare
mountainmare Posts: 294 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
This may sound silly, but... I have a HRM and would like to find my resting heart rate.
If I lay down a few minutes it ranges btween 59-60. Or do you get it sitting quietly, or standing? I'm 62 and my BMI is overweight--just below obese, I am a regular exerciser with no health problems. Is a HR of 60 reasonable?
Now--how do I find my recovery rate? If I walk steep hills I can get my HR pretty high-(high130s-sometimesmid140s) for a brief period of time. If I then sit down my HR returns to less than 100 within one or two minutes. How do I really find a recovery rate. I did the resting test on the HRM--it says I'm elite but you wouldn't know it to look at me!!!

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  • mountainmare
    mountainmare Posts: 294 Member
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    Anybody???
  • omma_to_3
    omma_to_3 Posts: 3,265 Member
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    I don't think the resting HR will vary much based on laying down vs. sitting so I think your 59/60 is probably accurate.

    I'm not sure on the recovery rate though. Interested to hear responses about that!
  • RosieWest8
    RosieWest8 Posts: 185 Member
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    Your resting heart rate should be taken right when you wake up and before you get out of bed to do anything. Ideally.

    You could wear your HRM to bed and just wake up and press your button on the watch to start it...wait maybe a few minutes and then read what it said your AVG heart rate was. Or you could simply wake up, find your pulse and count for a minute. That'd give you a good idea of what it is.

    I have no clue what it *should be though... =D
  • mountainmare
    mountainmare Posts: 294 Member
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    Ok thanks--so it is probably a bit lower, I'll give it a try. According to some charts it seems pretty good, maybe I am in good shape after all.
  • trail_rnr
    trail_rnr Posts: 337 Member
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    Assuming your HRM is the recording kind, wear it to bed with it tracking (with the tracking function "on"). In the morning, download the data and look at the patterns. Do this a few times in one week. It's pretty enlightening to see where the peaks and valleys are.

    If it's not the recording kind, take your HR first thing in the am manually, while you are still in bed (try not to move too much). For me, personally, there is a 20 bpm difference between my true RHR and what I get when I am sitting up.

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