what is the absolute LOWEST resting heartrate that a runner can have?

I was hitting 38-39 as a 19 min 5k guy.

No you were not.

26 or 28 is about the lowest. 21, you're headed to your demise.

I was never close to being an elite runner, but when I was just out of college & running 60-70 mpw I had a resting pulse of 29, measured at the doctor's office. I was also very thin -- like African-type thin -- at the time, which probably contributed.

4 if you are REALLY fit, but that's pretty rare

16-19 if you are in decent shape

ortho wrote:

No you were not.

I most certainly was.

Now at sub 17 it's still around 37-38.

I don't know why some of you are so ignorant when it comes to hr.

It is GENETIC and has NOTHING to do with performance. Not a SINGLE thing.

Educate yourself.

0 bpm is possible for a runner.

Heard Salazar had 0 bpm for 14 minutes..

Heart rate doesn't matter, mine is 39-41 and has been even when I was a 18 minute guy.

coach bigfoot wrote:

Heart rate doesn\'t matter, mine is 39-41 and has been even when I was a 18 minute guy.

yep yep

Ron Clarke's RHR was 26-28....this is verified

i assume many bicyclists are equally as low

someone, i forgot who...a north african, was reported to be even lower than Clarke

On the other hand Jim Ryan never had a resting heart rate lower than 45...

so, don't make too much hay about this. Its better to be lower, but lots of slow people are under 40 bpm...

harrrrrrrrrrr r wrote:

Now at sub 17 it's still around 37-38.

I don't know why some of you are so ignorant when it comes to hr.

It is GENETIC and has NOTHING to do with performance. Not a SINGLE thing.

Educate yourself.

Exactly this. At my best distance fitness, I could run 2 miles in 11 minutes. Typically I could probably do a 23min 5km. My resting heart rate seems to fluctuate between 37 and 45, depending on stress/weight/activity. I'm 6'2 and my lowest weight in the last 10 years is 175lbs. Typically 185.

I like how everyone is lieing through their teeth.

Maybe .1% of the population has a RHR under 40, yet 85% of this thread does?

Sure.

Indurain was at 28, Armstrong at 30, Ullrich at 32, but all these measures were a result of HEAVY EPO usage, which obviously has one of the side effects of slowing down HR.

It was reported that some cyclists hearts were beating so slow that they were attached to a machine monitoring their HR each night during their heavy "cycles". Yes, think about it for a moment.

Unless I consciously and uncomfortably mess with my breathing, I'm like 60-65 in bed and 65-75 over the course of the day. Considering the fact that I'm young and fairly fit I'm finding it shocking that this many people could possibly be below 50.

Beats by Dr. Dre wrote:

Unless I consciously and uncomfortably mess with my breathing, I'm like 60-65 in bed and 65-75 over the course of the day. Considering the fact that I'm young and fairly fit I'm finding it shocking that this many people could possibly be below 50.

FWIW, the lowest I got was low 40's. 43 or so. That was when I was in mid 15's 5k shape. Right now more in 17ish shape but RHR is not that different...

I have no problems believing some very fit individuals would have mid to high 30's, everything below is kinda scary.

The resting heart rate of a blue whale is about 10 bpm, and that's without EPO.

1. Blue whales have EPO

(NoI haven't checked the phylogenetic distribution, but I'm confident enough to state this matter-of-factly on LRC)

2. Lots of responses show incredulity that someone's HR could be something other than their own

3. Training depresses resting HR and increases performance so there must be some correlation between resting HR and performance at least in a mixed population of trained and untrained. But maybe in a population of, say, college runners, there is no (or trivial) correlation)

Instead of arguing whether RHR is relevant to performance, why not discuss something which really is relevant, i.e. 1-minute recovery rate. Elites typically recover 60-90 bpm a minute after finishing, say, an 800m rep. I find it depends on hydration, weather, how tapered I am and what I do during recovery phase.

My RHR has been around 40 since I first started measuring it 3yrs ago - and I've taken around 5 mins off my 5K since then...