Low resting heart rate?

Lower your resting heart rate the longer you will live.

As a nurse, I've taken my fair share of RHR measurements on people. Bradycardia due to regular endurance-sport activity is clearly expected and normal, although to be sub-40 is quite rare. My own RHR was 40-42 for years when I was running a lot, and I know a lot of people with similar results. But again, 36 (or anything under 40) is quite rare. Some elite cyclists have documented regular RHR in the 30's, but it's uncommon.

If you are concerned and it's bothering you, it wouldn't hurt to do some simple tests at your doctor's to rule out something abnormal via an EKG or similar (stress test would be possibly helpful as well), but I really wouldn't be very worried about it.

Last year former Elite marathoner Tom Fleming died from complications due to a low resting heart rate.

See a good sports cardiologist and do it ASAP.

ttps://

www.sciencenewsh.org/blog/scicurious/slow-heartbeat-athletes-not-so-funny

ttps://www.sciencenewsh.org/blog/scicurious/slow-heartbeat-athletes-not-so-funny

oops

Ok now I’m scared! I’ve had an ekg done and everything was normal but now I’m worried I’m going to have a heart attack

low hr wrote:

I know it’s normal for runners to have low heart rates, but how low is too low? My resting heart rate has dipped to 36 before and hovers around 40 but I’m by no means an elite athlete. I run for my school but am currently in off season— during Track season we were only doing about 30 miles/week although it was very intense. I’m female, and 19 y/o. Is this normal? During exercise it typically isn’t very high either. I ran a 5k the other day (not all out but faster than a jog) and my HR was only about 150. I’m just wondering if this is something I should be worried about

That exercise HR is on the lower end of things, but nothing odd. Some people have diesel hearts and others have hummingbird hearts. 150 for a hard, but not all out effort would likely indicate a max in the 160s, maybe even lower 170s, which is completely normal. There are hundreds of examples of good athletes who have Max HRs in that range in their 20s and 30s. Of course, as you get older it tends to slow further, and I've seen plenty of older athletes who are going pretty hard and have HRs in the 110-130 range.

My max HR according to my Garmin is about 201. I’m kind of freaked out about my low hr now. If it dips below 40 should I go to the hospital? I have bad anxiety, so hearing that I could die from this is really freaking me out

low hr wrote:

My max HR according to my Garmin is about 201. I’m kind of freaked out about my low hr now. If it dips below 40 should I go to the hospital? I have bad anxiety, so hearing that I could die from this is really freaking me out

Can't you speak to your doctor/ask your parents to arrange to see your doctor? Not that I think there's anything wrong, but if it's 'freaking you out'.

I'm in my forties and according to my Garmin my heartrate is sometimes as low as 37 (I only took up running a few months ago).

I can make an appointment with my doctor, but I probably won’t be able to get in for another couple weeks. I just want to know if this is something immediate or something that can wait

low hr wrote:

My max HR according to my Garmin is about 201. I’m kind of freaked out about my low hr now. If it dips below 40 should I go to the hospital? I have bad anxiety, so hearing that I could die from this is really freaking me out

If you're running hard at 150, chances are that 201 is just a bad reading. HRMs can do that early on especially if the strap isn't wet.

99.99% of athletes are fine and perfectly safe to train and race hard. Heart attack is very rarely what causes problems for younger athletes. It's usually some form of ventricular arrhythmia. These conditions are very rare. If you've never had any side effects or concerns it's incredibly likely that your absolutely fine. Thousands of other athletes with low resting HRs are.

Here's the deal, you could go get checked out by a cardiologist to look for any abnormalities in the heart, both structurally via echo and electrically via EKG. Problem is, you have anxiety. You'll go to the doctor, find out that everything looks normal as can be and you're a typical, healthy athlete and feel great for a week or two. Then you'll either feel something wierd because your anxious, or just start thinking "maybe the doctor missed something", and that cycle continues and you end up just as anxious as you were before, no thinking there might be some hidden condition that the doctors missed.

A cardiac screening in young athletes probably doesn't hurt if it's reasonably affordable, but realize it's almost certain you'll come back completely healthy/normal, and that in the long term this won't really do anything about your anxiety. That's realistically what you need to fix first.

Coevett wrote:

low hr wrote:

My max HR according to my Garmin is about 201. I’m kind of freaked out about my low hr now. If it dips below 40 should I go to the hospital? I have bad anxiety, so hearing that I could die from this is really freaking me out

Can't you speak to your doctor/ask your parents to arrange to see your doctor? Not that I think there's anything wrong, but if it's 'freaking you out'.

I'm in my forties and according to my Garmin my heartrate is sometimes as low as 37 (I only took up running a few months ago).

Speaking to a doctor won't really do the OP any good. It's not like this is someone who has had scary symptoms and is worried because of the symptoms. OP is dealing with anxiety, to the extent that reading on the internet about low HR and noticing a low HR caused fear. That's fairly strong anxiety.

When you're dealing with anxiety you almost act as if you're looking for an excuse to have something wrong with you. OP goes to the doctor, gets pronounced healthy, and within a few weeks is back to being freaked out, worried that "well the doctors could have missed something".

Thanks for both your replies. I do have anxiety, and I am currently being treated for it. The low heart rate scared me because one of my teammates mentioned that it isn’t normal, and then my anxiety started kicking in. I may go to the doctors just for some reassurance, but I appreciate your replies.

you don't need to go to the doctor for a resting HR of 35-40. It's not abnormal among runners, even just casual runners. Mine is around 36 as well. My dad's used to be 35ish and my mom, a hobbyjogger doing 20 mpw, is around 40-45.

My max is way way higher than 160 though, probably more like 195.

Low hr wrote:

Thanks for both your replies. I do have anxiety, and I am currently being treated for it. The low heart rate scared me because one of my teammates mentioned that it isn’t normal, and then my anxiety started kicking in. I may go to the doctors just for some reassurance, but I appreciate your replies.

also, don't trust the data from a heart rate monitor on your garmin, especially if it's an optical HRM on the wrist. don't trust it for the high or the low HRs, unless you do an all-out short race (800m-5k) and it looks very reasonable, like going quickly up to a moderate HR then rising throughout and peaking a bit during your final kick.

I had the same issue. Doctor had me wear a holter monitor. Mine was 29 early in the morning. Its ok to have a slow heartrate. Runners heart is what its called if you want to google it. Nothing crazy just part of running a lot

This is true. I've been there myself and anxiety can twist your mind into fearing/feeling all kinds of things. If it is your only concern then it is not a sign of impending doom on it's own. As an athlete, getting your heart checked out can never hurt, but fretting without further symptoms is just your anxiety getting to you.

You might check to see if any meds that you are taking for anxiety might cause a lower heart rate -- don't know if you're on meds at all but it's worth checking the typical side effects.

I have a low resting rate, and also a low max (38/165), but for a female at your age your rates do seem a bit low. However, it's a measurement that varies a lot from person to person and this could easily just be your normal range.

Many people mistakenly believe that a super high max heart rate indicates high fitness, or conversely, they think the same thing about low resting rates. There's not necessarily a correlation between either and being very fit.

my resting HR is about 68 bpm. I am 40 year old male I always thought it should be a little lower considering how much I run, doctor said 60-100 is "normal"