Resting heart rate and training

It's very very personal. Not "offensive" personal, but "varies among athletes" personal.

It really depends on how fit you are now (how often you've been working out and for how many years). As you can imagine, the less fit you are, the more room for improvement there is, so the more your RHR will drop.

I experienced a RHR decline from 56 to 45 in about 8 months with an average training volume of approximately 10-15 hours per week...but that's just my own "personal" experience.

Another thing to consider is taking your average RHR over many days. A little thing like moving your arm a bit, or the alarm clock startling you awake can affect your RHR.

My RHR has decreased 14% in my first month of training ~7hrs./week.

Some great advice I received from this website is that some people need to get up and use the bathroom when they wake up. Then get back in bed and rest for a few seconds before taking RHR. My RHR is ~4 beats lower after doing this.

Just a suggestion.

My RHR has dropped from mid 70s in June to anywhere between 47 and 52 these days.
It took a little getting used to, now I just expect it.

This user's post has been ignored.

I agree with domlazz (to a degree).

If your only taking 0-1 days a week for recovery then look at your RHR as an average over all the days you worked out in a row. If you exceed that avg by 5 beats in any one-day then you should consider taking an extra day off the next day.

If your workouts vary on frequency (you do them when you feel like it) then you’re really out of luck on using your RHR as a means to determine when a rest day should occur. I'm not saying you can't use them but your more likely to see your RHR jump way up and down and will be harder to spot a bad trend vs. irregular training.

Weight training, in my opinion, does not count as a "training day"...unless of coarse you get your HR above 130 and keep it there for more than 25 min. (which is possible btw)

When to take RHR:

I don't recall who it was on here that suggested it, but I found it to be very, very, very true. Try to take your measurement as close to when you get up as possible everyday. I used to take mine while reading these posts, which happened to be after I was already to go to work in the mornings...it made for high inconsistent readings (espicially after I read some of Bears comments). Now, I get up, hit the bathroom, strap on the belt, lie back down, and wait to start my timer once my HR is below 60, and sleep for 5 more min. Presto...a nice RHR average over a 5 min period of time.

Lastly, these are just the views I've had from my short time working with my HR. You should simply start with taking your HR first thing in the morning and track it everyday to become your own best critic on how your body is reacting to what your putting it through.

It varies greatly. Mine is 42-48 depending on how hard/if I trained the day before. The harder I trained the day before the higher it goes. I don't even take it now except after off/light training days now. By the way expect as yours goes down that your physician will "freak out" a little about it being so low unless he/she is a athlete themselves. I had a physical this past summer and the doc wanted to do a full ekg and all because of it.

my morning HR goes from 35 to 48, and I am on an hour a day treaning. So, it is really individual thing. What U should do is monitor your HR so U will know when is out of normal. but noone can tell U how low or hing your HR should be.
take care
chris