Hi! I am wondering what happens with resting heart rate when volume and intensity go down. Does it increase with time? If so, how much and what’s the time frame?
I am asking because I am not sure what I can expect as baseline at the moment. When I was in good shape during summer, I averaged about 50 bpm sleeping, plus/minus a couple of beats depending on training. Could be 55 after an interval session or 48 after a rest day. In September and October I rode less and focused more on strength training to address knee pain. Strength training impacted my resting heart rate way more than any intervall session, but I guess that’s normal when lifting heavy. Beginning of November I had Covid which meant three weeks without any activities beyond a couple of walks and short, easy hikes. I had done a couple of 1hr rides when I caught another bug, having a sore throat and often clogged nose for 1,5 weeks now. I never averaged less than 55 bpm sleeping, some days I was even up to 65. I’d just like to have an idea what I should expect as new baseline without illness.
Hi Daniel, resting HR will certainly go up after period of de-training. This will be accelerated by sickness or other factors as your body is shifting resources to healing etc. It’s hard to say what you should expect as new baseline as this a very personal thing. I had observed a similar trend during a shoulder injury where my resting HR went from around 52 to 59 over a period of 4 months.
Best, Hannes
As @Hausi pointed out it’s hard to estimate what YOU can expect for yourself.
For me, when fully trained the rest-HR is typically in the 40–50 range, with nightly values routinely <40.
Following a mild–moderate COVID infection in 2021, rest-HR was increase by >10 for a month, and HR during exercise was increased >10 for many (8?) weeks.
After an injury and a second operation this fall, with a 8 weeks “no training” stretch rest-HR went up to 55–60, some exceptional days even >60, over one months, then stayed constant.
Now three weeks after the start of endurance training, albeit mostly only easy pedaling on the trainer and commutes, it’s back below 50.
To me, this very much looks largely like “fast responses” in VO2max/plasma volume…
See also the Uth–Sørensen–Overgaard–Pedersen approximation for a reasonable conceptional relationship:
On the timescales we are discussing here max-HF can be considered constant, thus there is a direct antiproportional relationship between rest-HR and VO2max.
Resting HR is only one of the indicators and can’t tell you much on its own.
If you decrease volume and intensity after a loading block, it will probably go down. But that’s just because it went up during the loading block where your body had to deal with more stress. In fact, it returns to baseline when you get back to your regular training routine.
Resting HR going up or down can have multiple reasons/causes and you can only evaluate if you bring it all together.
Resting HR is usually a good indicator for acute situations. Sickness and high stress, for example, will show immediately. Training and detraining on the other hand are only seen in resting HR on long/very long term. And it’s not obvious because there are other factors that cause long term changes in resting HR. HRrest typically has a pattern related to the seasons.
Sickness causes a sudden rise and then, while you recover from the sickness, you return to your ‘baseline’. Detraining will never show during diseases that don’t take you down for more then a couple of weeks.
You need to look at resting HR in three different ways: acute, mid-term and long-term. Combine that with subjective feelings, training load and a diary with notes on periods of high stress, sickness, travel…
Yes, your resting heart rate will likely increase when your training volume and intensity decrease.
It’s hard to predict the exact increase and time frame, but expect a gradual rise until you reach a new baseline reflecting your current activity level.
Thanks everyone! From what you have shared I suppose mid-50s could well be my current “good” resting heart rate. I’ll assume it is and for training, I will go by feel. I may have to resume taking HRV morning readings to learn more because right now my Garmin Body Battery doesn’t correlate with how I feel at all.
@yokuha After the first time I had Covid I experienced the same but worse. My doctor said it’s neuritis. I had chest pain and even after very, very easy exercise my autonomous nervous system went off the rails. My heart rate was up and I had difficulties sleeping. The physical therapist said it’s the Vagus nerve that has been affected. It has flared up again a little now, but it’s not nearly as bad as it has been before. I am not sure if it is also messing with my heart rate or not, which also motivated me asking here.
In my experience (looking at my own data for the last decade) it takes a pretty long period of detraining before you see increase in resting HR, probably over 6mo.
What I have noticed responds much quicker is my HRV, with a pretty significant increase (in my case) of HRV baseline when detraining.
Your response may be different, but what seem to be useful in HRV analysis is not the absolute values but the trends.
Taking 2-4weeks off during off season I generally see drastic change in values.
One of the reasons for higher resting HR can be that blood plasma volume will decrease after a period of detraining, which results in the blood becoming “thicker”. The heart has to beat harder to push the blood around the body, which is why resting HR will be higher.
A bout of high intensity training s the stimulus required to increase blood plasma volume.
I crashed and tore a meniscus in June. Unfortunately it was diagnosed a bit late because the initial manual tests were false negative. I had surgery and I am still recovering. Sleep is still not great, sleeping heart rate is high and my Garmin watch usually gives me a Body Battery max of around 30. I thougt that after the downtime following the surgery I’d have a data point for the initial question, but it doesn’t look like it. I have started light riding on the indoor trainer, but I’ll leave the heart rate monitor off. I don’t wanna know!
I don’t wanna know!