When I get more sleep my RHR goes down, and my max doesn’t change

When I’m sick, or overexerting myself, my RHR goes up (usually before I acknowledge something is wrong with me). Or when I’m stressed or drinking a lot

My max HR doesn’t really change unless I’m completely untrained, when it can get 8-10bpm high for a couple weeks, then settles back into a training “normal”. I can never hit my untrained Max HR when I’m trained

When I'm rested my RHR goes up slightly mostly cuz I train myself into HR suppression.

When I start to see it stay lower while sleeping and I'm unable to raise it during workouts I know I've gone too far.

I'm likely in the minority though.

Yeah I’m willing to toss out my RHR data since I’ve been at my inlaws because it does get plenty below what it says mine is at any given time of the day.

I’m tossing overtraining out the window volume is way down. I used to run 60 mpw and I’m hitting like 30-40 in December with less intensity overall.

But is it possible I’ve never hit close to my max HR due to never being fully rested? Ie my perceived max HR of like 188 is actually closer to 193 or something?

I've had chronic sleep problems that were honestly THE limiter from triathlon for the past 10 years. I've solved most of it only in the past 2 years, through various CPAP, neck strap, sleep-aid medication, and timing of sleep to get to averaging a normal amount of 7-8 ish (with 4-5 brief wakeups). Before that I would go like 4,4,7,10, and be exhausted a lot. Though it was the young kid, but turns out I had sleep apnea pretty bad.

I will say that from my n=1 experience, the biggest difference I've seen from being able to sleep well is that I can go harder on the hard stuff. It's not even a huge difference, but when you're running to near maxHR on Vo2 stuff, even small differences feel huge.

As a result, I can push higher HRs for longer when I'm well rested. Kinda seems obvious - sleep deprive someone for 24hrs, and make them do workouts. They'll likely do fine despite the fatigue on z1-z2 stuff, and even the z3 stuff, but they'll be significantly top-end limited if you push them to z4/z5 intervals.

I'd expect to see high HRs with faster overall paces with good sleep. You shouldn't be seeing high HRs with worsened paces - if you are but are 'feeling really good', it's more likely a matter of differing conditions.

I've been watching the "body battery" on my garmin 945 for a while now and do my best to get it back to 100 every night. I'm not always successful.

It's possible the science behind it is flawed but my quest for the numbers i want have left me better rested, maybe even over-rested.

At 53 years old that's probably a good thing because I've been able to raise my HR with harder sustained paces more often.

So it's actually really, really complicated. I've spent a TON of time reading up on sleep- getting good at sleep was my mission for this year and I can say I really got there. Largely quitting drinking helped a ton, and fortunately I'm a fast caffeine metabolizer so that helps too.

First, you can't draw conclusions from short periods of time related to HR. You just can't. It takes a long time to have a measurable impact.

Second, even though you're sleeping a long time I guess I'd ask what the quality of your sleep is- 9 hours of fitful sleep with low latency actually is a symptom of other issues vs 7 hours of great deep sleep. I'm way way oversimplifying here. I would expect with high quality sleep over time you'd be able to both go harder in your workouts as well as recover faster.

I'd also want to know how you're tracking HR in your training at the track. You're going to get a lot of quality variability in the optical sensor from your garmin vs a chest strap, so that may play a part in it.

By the way if you want an excellent read, Matt Walker's book, "Why We Sleep" is a wonderful read. If you want the quick version and don't mind the interviewer being kinda meh the Kevin Rose podcast where he interviews Walker will get you about 70% of the meat of the book.

Exactly the same here.
Up until March this year I travelled a reasonable amount for work onto various parts of Europe (and occasionally North America) from the UK. Usually a few days here, a week there. Nothing long term. Inevitably these trips involve early starts, flights, etc, and usually working late, and almost always not getting enough sleep. Little alcohol involved though. And as sure as night follows day, by the end of the week my resting HR will be up 10-15% (from low 50s to upper 50s).
No noticed change to max HR though.

Tracking HR with a chest strap. Was using it for just workouts earlier this year but have been using it for all runs and rides for the last 3 plus months.

Thanks for the recommendation for reading Matt’s book. I watched his podcast with Joe Rogan when he came on and I completely understand the importance of sleep.

When I was younger I just couldn’t fall asleep or stay asleep. Now my issue is limited to staying asleep. I am a very light sleeper and once I’m up I’m up for at least an hour or all together.

There are a lot of times we’re I wake up after 4-5 hours and just sit in bed until about 6 where I’m able to maybe eek out another 45mins to an hour.

This past couple of weeks I’ve been sleeping until about 7, waking up less in the middle of the night but after waking up at 7 being able to roll over for an additional 90mins.

I’m starting to think it’s a subconscious thing, as I had to work the last two days so when 7 hit my body got up and stayed up even though I didn’t have to sign in to my computer until 8.

I’ll check Matt’s book out though, as I do want to increase sleep.

I have an eerily similar observation to you but I have some complicating factors.

I had surgery in early December (microdisectomy) that just couldn't be resolved on it's own. First two or three weeks, my RHR was normal - mid/low 50's. Then the week of Christmas the RHR was in the low 60's. I couldn't figure it out and it actually started to bother me and make me anxious along with questioning if I was getting COVID, etc. -- when I get sick, I'll see my RHR spike for about 2 days before the onset of symptoms. So here we are, two weeks later, and it's starting to come down just a little.

The only difference, other than recovering from surgery, was that for the two weeks from early December until the week of Christmas, I was getting up with my wife so she could help me get dressed (socks...) and settled for the day. I'd answer some emails, play some video games, watch "sportsball news" on TV that my wife claims is the same thing over and over and over.

Week of Christmas and last week, we were sleeping in to 930am or later. Going to bed later too, but 9 hours of sleep versus the normal 6-7. And every night I've been waking up to take some meds around 230am and 530am. But that didn't change.

The only other explanation for a RHR increase are also plausible - I love to have something to do, so work was keeping me somewhat occupied those first few weeks until everyone took off. And also my aerobic engine is certainly falling out of order.

It'll be interesting to see how the next two weeks goes with being back at work, sleeping less, and still not exercising.

Yeah idk what’s going on the last two days my RHR has been high 50s and my HR hasn’t come down below 58 today. I did an easy run at 7 but it should be down back below 50 by now.

The only thing I can attribute it to is diet change. My inlaws are French and we eat a lot of cheese and butter when visiting. I eat more in general but I’ve been home a couple days now and figured things would normalize not get worse.

I have nothing to stress about at work either so...oh well easy runs and rides for me until it’s figured out.

If you're more well-rested it may be a volitional issue that's allowing higher max HR.

RHR may be elevated if you're training more overall or if you're training more indoors and slightly dehydrated as a result. (on indoor bike?)

Just my quick conjecture!

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Dr. Alex Harrison | Founder & CEO | Sport Physiology & Performance PhD
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I don't know if it's necessary to go easy just because RHR is elevated. It's just one of many markers to pay attention to, most principally "do I feel fatigued?"

Max HR elevation isn't a concern either unless you had extensive testing for max HR done while in a similarly well-rested state in the past. Even if so... I wouldn't be concerned unless you have other heart/chest-related symptoms or are feeling more fatigued than normal.

High saturated fat content of your diet is unlikely to result in transient or chronic increase in either RHR or Max HR.

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Dr. Alex Harrison | Founder & CEO | Sport Physiology & Performance PhD
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📱 Check out our app → Saturday: Pro Fuel & Hydration, a performance nutrition coach in your pocket.
Join us on YouTube → Saturday Morning | Ride & Run Faster and our growing Saturday User Hub

N=1 but my HR (particularly my threshold and max HR) are inversely correlated with my level of fatigue. When I'm in the midst of a big training block and/or have poor sleep, my HR is much more flat and tops out lower regardless of how hard I push. Holding conditions constant, my threshold HR will be ~160 and max 170 when I'm carrying a lot of fatigue.

This past fall, I took a 2 week break for the first time in my 5 years of endurance training, then rebuilt volume for a few weeks at low intensity. Took me about 2-3 weeks to get my fitness back, but my HR profile was much different at the high ends. I hit over 180HR in a ramp test which I haven't hit in years, and I held a 170 avg HR in a HM I ran in December (I felt amazing that whole week and ran the best I've ever run at any distances). That's a 10bpm difference from where I was in late summer when carrying a bunch of fatigue.