yogabook / movement physiology / resting heart rate

Resting heart rate / Resting pulse

The resting heart rate/resting pulse is normally defined as the number of hemodynamically effective heartbeats per unit of time (usually minutes). In certain cases, the limb pulse may be partially or completely absent. Hemodynamically ineffective beats of the heart are also conceivable, i.e. contractions of the heart chambers that do not lead to any relevant ejection of blood and thus to no palpable or auscultable pulse wave in the periphery – this is referred to as a pulse deficit – which is why the above specification is necessary; a more correct term would be: resting heart rate RHR. A resting heart rate of between 60 and 80 beats per minute is considered normal; above 100 bpm, tachycardia is present. After birth, the resting heart rate is 120 – 140 bpm, in infants 100 – 120 bpm, in older children and adolescents 80 to 100 bpm, before dropping further to the adult resting heart rate. The resting heart rate should be measured in the morning after waking up, before the first thoughts of the coming day’s exertions arise, or in the evening when the person has completely rested. There are a lot of false-positive factors for the pulse, such as: Caffeine, teine, a full stomach, full bowels or a full bladder, perceptible urge to micturate or defecate, completed exertion or exercise, stress, time of day, weather, significantly increased or decreased outside temperature, infections and many other illnesses, endocrinologic abnormalities. In addition, there is the white coat effect: the examination situation produces a sympathetic increase in the heart rate, which can also apply when you examine yourself. In the regeneration phase after intensive training, the heart rate can still be elevated by a few beats (not more than 10) on the following day, which can be interpreted as a sign of the (possibly too high) intensity of the training. In addition, the resting heart rate is clearly dependent on the level of training and age. Long-term endurance athletes often have resting heart rates of less than 50, in the case of long distance runners even around 40 or in the case of professional cyclists up to their mid-30s. The Spanish professional cyclist Miguel Indurain had the lowest resting heart rate ever measured in a healthy person at 28 bpm. The basis of this adaptation is the growth of the heart muscle; with training, the heart becomes larger and also develops greater contractile force. In the physiological case (there are also pathological bradycardias), the resting heart rate correlates inversely with the endurance capacity, i.e. the greater the endurance capacity, the lower the resting heart rate. In highly trained athletes, physiological sinus pauses of over 2 seconds can occur during sleep.

When performance is required, the cardiac output and thus the volume increases first, followed by the beat frequency and finally the electrical conduction time. On the other hand, the resting heart rate increases very slowly in older people. The rhythm of the heart at rest is not completely regular, there are slight fluctuations in the tenths of a second range, after which the pulse speeds up a little with each inhalation, only to drop again with the exhalation. These phenomena are included in the heart rate variability. The influence of psychological factors on the heart rate is often too great to determine a reliable resting heart rate. A reference heart rate can then be determined, which is measured at 20W power on the ergometer in a relaxed atmosphere. The influence of psychological factors is usually largely eliminated by this work. This reference heart rate is on average 18.5 bpm higher than the resting heart rate for men and 24.5% higher for women; the fluctuation range is quite small. The recovery correlates with the vagal tone.