Question regarding low resting heart rate but high exercising heart rate

Triathlon Forum
1

Hi All,
This one is for all the physiology experts out there.

My girlfriend has just started to train using heart rate and has noticed something strange, I’m an exercise science graduate (please, don’t all applaud at once!) and am still at a loss as to what may be happening.

A bit of background about her:
She started running very young (dad was a paratrooper) and ran cross country competitively as a kid. She was, by all accounts, very quick over 3 or 4 miles.
She hasn’t trained consistently since the age of 16 (she’s 24 now).
She has strung some running together more recently in prep for open 10Ks and half marathons, but to be honest hasn’t had what I would describe as success. Recent PBs are 10K in 57:xx and half marathon in 1:57:xx. Only tri time of 3:35.xx (very slow swim)
She isn’t fat by any means but is almost inexplicably heavy, 5’ 8" 160lb (but a size 8-10 clothing UK, clothing size 4-6 US). We genuinely suspect heavy bones!

Anyway, back to the heart rate issue:
She has reliably measured her resting heart rate at 42bpm when sitting at her desk at work. She says that it is likely lower than 40 when she wakes up.
However, she says that even moderate running leads to her heart rate jumping up into the 170s.
She ran today and was trying to keep her heart rate down to ~150bpm, she ended up averaging 157bpm with an average speed of over 11:00/mile.

In essence, my questions are:
Her heart is obviously very efficient on a basic level, and her stroke volume must be high. Why does this efficiency not carry through to when she is under stress?
What do these things say about her potential and current state of fitness?

Liam

2

Easy: She is not fit.

She needs a larger % of her stroke volume to get to the working muscles. She needs to train more and get more local adaptations. And likely get skinny, loose about 20 lbs (to be competetive, but dont take this as any ‘she is too fat to have success’ or anything like that, none of that intended, running just favors a very light body… Might not even be healthy for her to loose weight, however training is always healthy), to reduce the oxygen demand of any given running speed, since CO increases with increased O2 demand.

Stroke volume is one of the training effects (only?) that is pretty much permanent.

3

Easy: She is not fit.

Agreed. If you have been fit for a while it is easy to forget, but most people get winded pretty quickly doing routine stuff. If she keeps this up she will increase capillary and mitochondrial density so that her respiratory system is more effective fueling her muscles. The low resting heart rate is a positive indicator of general health but this is an interesting example of how it doesn’t correlate to moving fitness.

4

whats her max HR?

5

I’m no expert but range alone does not tell you much. And, I always thought it was good to be able to generate a large range between your resting rate and your max rate, assuming your performance was good and you are not struggling at a lowish level of effort with a super high heart rate.

She may not be fit, or she might be incredibly fit, or she might just not have a super human heart and is making up for a lack of stroke volume with more bpm. But, the range alone does not answer the question. The fittest I’ve ever been and highest physical capabilities I ever had was back in my late teens when my resting heart rate was 36 and my max was over 200.

6

Agree with the others, she isn’t fit, at least not the way we would expect her to be. For a 24 year old a heart beat of 170 in moderate exercise shouldn’t necessarily be concerning and I put a lot less stock in HRM as a reliable measure of anything other than how fast your heart is beating than many around here. It sounds like she just needs more volume at lower intensities. I hate high volume with low intensity, it is boring as hell, but it is also necessary.

Don’t get too down on her, for a non-pro and non-collegiate a lady running a 10K in under an hour and a 1/2 under 2 hours is really not bad. Don’t get down on her weight either; if you value your relationship long term. I am 5’10" and 195 pounds (I am also male) and I can promise you that it takes more work for me to run reasonably quick then my noodely running friends.

7

She may not be fit, or she might be incredibly fit, or she might just not have a super human heart and is making up for a lack of stroke volume with more bpm. But, the range alone does not answer the question. The fittest I’ve ever been and highest physical capabilities I ever had was back in my late teens when my resting heart rate was 36 and my max was over 200.

^^^^^
This

I don’t think the HR data you have on her tells you much. I’m “fit” by most standards, but have a similar low resting HR and high exercising HR. I average 185bpm for a marathon. I did a ~3hr ride up Mt. Lemmon and averaged 184bpm. Neither of those felt like hard efforts and my pace/speed was respectable. For others, those HRs would be close to their max or 5k effort. HR range is IMO a fairly meaningless metric.

8

I’m not in the high max heart rate camp anymore but looking at the heart rate data for my younger cycling companions on Strava, 170 does not sound all that high for a 24 year old to me. I see that all the time from guys around that age who I know are very very fit but, at the times they are putting out that data, are not working all that hard. To be honest, I am constantly amazed at how high the young guys’ heart rates are when I look at our rides.

9

You might want to get a complete blood count as well. A 24 yo female - if heavy menstrual cycles - could have anemia which would mean high HR when exercising.

10

In agreement with some weight loss and more exercise and remember, HR isn’t a “tell all” indication of fitness. Might benefit with some Fartlek training.

Monday at pre-op when they hooked me up for EKG my HR was 34bpm. and had to move around to get a good line at 39bpm. Yesterday right before surgery my HR on the table was 32bpm before being knocked out. Last Saturday during a 1:45:10 flat 38 mile LBS ride I had an average HR of 140bpm max of 167bpm when I pulled at 31mph. Can’t run due to bad knees and best 5K at 27:10 had average HR of 145bpm. Best half walking was 2:11:10 again 140bpm average. Fastest walking mile of 8:36 at 165bpm. Really can’t compare one person to another for HR. Everybody yesterday upon seeing me said, “Oh, you’re a runner” but alas I’m not.

Will be 65 in July, 5’ 8.5" and 140lbs. Canceled Sunday’s IM70.3FL due to surgery.

11

She probably just has a high max heart rate. This is normal. For example, two 20 year old cross country runners, both with VO2 max in excess of 70 ml/kg/min. One had a max HR of 175, the other 212. They were generally neck and neck across most race distances. This is a real example from my lab. The guy with the 212 max HR will have a higher HR at all run paces.

12

Everyone’s physiology is different. If she wants to keep using HRM then she probably should do a field LT test as described here. There’s a link after the 1st paragraph for “Calculating Heart Rate Zones” in a spreadsheet. Majority, or all, of her runs should be a build into Z2 as she builds more fitness, then later can start adding Z3-Z4 tempo/Interval runs.

I have had excellent correlation with LT HR zones and training paces from a recent run using mcmillanrunning.com. Her 57:15 10k gives the following training paces:
Recovery Jogs: 11:07 - 11:55
Long Runs: 10:07 - 11:21
Easy Runs: 10:05 - 10:58
Steady State Run: 9:24 - 9:51
Tempo Run: 9:05 - 9:20
Tempo Intervals: 8:55 - 9:13

13

Sally Edwards in her book claims in her Ironman races, her heart rate was 185 bpm during the run. Amazing, that exceeds my maximum heart rate. I do not recall Sally’s resting HR but it also was pretty low.

At the time she was a very physically fit woman. So I would recommend that your girlfriend spend some quality run time with a good HRM. Establish a baseline and find out what is normal for her. You can compare HR to an RPE scale, both for running and biking.

I use Sally’s book and it is a good resource for HR training, a little outdated, but it is written from a female athlete’s point of view, which may really help your girlfriend more that going with the male point of view.

I have a motocross friend who regularly trains at 180-200 bpm!!? Meanwhile my regular training pace is 140-160 bpm, and he is no faster than I am and in great shape.

We try to put science into the equation, but sometimes it is more voodoo magic than science; meaning sometimes figuring out HR training can be an art rather than a plug and chug numbers game.

Just keep running and " it is what it is."

14

I’d ask about blood pressure…? What is her resting BP? If that is high, that may be something to look at… If it starts high at rest, the heart has to do a lot of bpm to get more blood flowing… right?

15

My resting is normally around 50ish and I race half marathons and oly distance at around 192. Range isn’t a big deal. I agree with the others she just sounds out of shape.

16

It is easy, resting HR has nothing to do with your own bodies max HR. Most athletes have a low HR, hardwired to be a certain # at birth, and then lowered through training efficiencies. So if you were supposed to have a 60 resting rate as a couch potato, you might get down to 40 being a life long endurance athlete. Conversely, you have a set Max HR too at birth. This is not affected much from being an athlete, but you work rate at a certain # can be.

So I had a 28 resting HR for most my life, and in my youngest days as an athlete, had a max just above 205. I know other pros that have similar low resting rates, but max rates as low as 160. It is just the luck of the draw, and from what i can tell, it means nothing. I would like to think that the person with the highest multiple of resting HR is the best, fittest, most gifted, but I have not found any correlation between those two extreme numbers. They just are what they are…

17

They just are what they are…

or perhaps there may be a just a bit of something going on there.

“Uth–Sørensen–Overgaard–Pedersen estimation
Another estimate of VO2 max for humans, based on maximum and resting heart rates, was created by a group of researchers from Denmark. It is given by:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/math/7/9/9/7990bd9648789ed00a0e63aab1cb1cc8.png
This equation uses maximum heart rate (HRmax) and resting heart rate (HRrest) to estimate VO2 max in mL/(kg·min).”

Hugh

18

Another estimate of VO2 max for humans, based on maximum and resting heart rates, was created by a group of researchers from Denmark. It is given by:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/math/7/9/9/7990bd9648789ed00a0e63aab1cb1cc8.png
This equation uses maximum heart rate (HRmax) and resting heart rate (HRrest) to estimate VO2 max in mL/(kg·min)."

Hugh //

I only wish this were the case, I would have been invincible!! This formula gives me a 105 VO2 max, ya baby!!!

Unfortunately this formula is about as good as 220- your age for max rate. +/- 40%

And by the way, I had a VO@ max test done when i was very young at the beginning of my pro career, and by a very respected sports lab at a top college. I hit 78, so very high by most standards. Probably my best as I was young and light, and had done endurance sports since I was 8 years old. 105 would have been nice though, could have probably even beat the dopers that I had to race back then…

19

Hi All,
This one is for all the physiology experts out there.

My girlfriend has just started to train using heart rate and has noticed something strange, I’m an exercise science graduate (please, don’t all applaud at once!) and am still at a loss as to what may be happening.

A bit of background about her:
She started running very young (dad was a paratrooper) and ran cross country competitively as a kid. She was, by all accounts, very quick over 3 or 4 miles.
She hasn’t trained consistently since the age of 16 (she’s 24 now).
She has strung some running together more recently in prep for open 10Ks and half marathons, but to be honest hasn’t had what I would describe as success. Recent PBs are 10K in 57:xx and half marathon in 1:57:xx. Only tri time of 3:35.xx (very slow swim)
She isn’t fat by any means but is almost inexplicably heavy, 5’ 8" 160lb (but a size 8-10 clothing UK, clothing size 4-6 US). We genuinely suspect heavy bones!

Anyway, back to the heart rate issue:
She has reliably measured her resting heart rate at 42bpm when sitting at her desk at work. She says that it is likely lower than 40 when she wakes up.
However, she says that even moderate running leads to her heart rate jumping up into the 170s.
She ran today and was trying to keep her heart rate down to ~150bpm, she ended up averaging 157bpm with an average speed of over 11:00/mile.

In essence, my questions are:
Her heart is obviously very efficient on a basic level, and her stroke volume must be high. Why does this efficiency not carry through to when she is under stress?
What do these things say about her potential and current state of fitness?

Liam

There is ZERO, and I mean ZERO correlation to anything,

Your wife (significant other) ran at 5:45km pace in a 10 km and then hit 5:30 pace double PB in a HM, IE 57:30 is 5:45 but 1:57:30 is 5:30 per km or so…

….possible clarification?

Don’t look at wieght, pace or HR before you look at this

Maurice

20

Easy: She is not fit.

Agreed. If you have been fit for a while it is easy to forget, but most people get winded pretty quickly doing routine stuff. If she keeps this up she will increase capillary and mitochondrial density so that her respiratory system is more effective fueling her muscles. The low resting heart rate is a positive indicator of general health but this is an interesting example of how it doesn’t correlate to moving fitness.

More proof that a low resting HR is not an indicator of fitness.