Resting Heart Rate (RHR)

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What is this?

 Resting heart rate is your heart’s beats per minute (bpm) while you are awake and at rest. 

Why is it important?

Your resting heart rate is an excellent indicator of your fitness level and cardiovascular health. Generally, a lower resting heart rate is associated with healthier, more active people; the fitter you become, the lower you can expect your resting heart rate to be. Just like any other muscle, the heart gets stronger with regular exercise. As a result, your heart is able to pump more blood with each beat, which means it needs fewer beats per minute to pump enough oxygen-rich blood to the rest of your body. This is why a well-trained endurance athlete could have a resting heart rate of 40 beats per minute or even lower. Just keep in mind that a low resting heart rate is not always a sign of fitness. Scroll down for a reference table per age group and gender.

Aside from your fitness level, your resting heart rate could also be influenced by other factors such as body mass, temperature, humidity, emotion, medication, infection, how recently you’ve exercised and how intense it was, and sleep. Furthermore, a poor diet, alcohol consumption and smoking cigarettes may increase your resting heart rate, so it’s best to avoid unhealthy habits. 

Normative ranges

A normal resting heart rate for adults is about 70 beats per minute, but can range from 40 to 100 beats per minute depending on how efficiently your heart pumps blood to the rest of your body. While a lower resting heart rate is generally seen as healthy, a resting heart rate below 50 beats per minute for a person who does not regularly exercise could be abnormal and should be checked by a medical professional.

Here is a reference table that shows the distribution of  resting heart rate (in beats per minute) according to different age and gender classifications. For example, if your resting heart rate matches the second percentile, only 2% of your peer group have a resting heart rate lower than yours. Similarly, if you are at the 98th percentile, 98% of your peer group have a resting heart rate lower than yours.