Resting Heart Rate (RHR)

Resting Heart Rate: what is it?

Resting heart rate is the cheapest longitudinal marker a coach has. It costs nothing, takes a minute, and needs no equipment beyond a finger and a clock. Its value isn't in the single number, it's in the line the number draws over months. A client who starts at 78 bpm and drifts to 64 over a training block has given you objective evidence that their aerobic system adapted, in a way no amount of "I feel fitter" ever will. The same number read day to day tells you something different again: whether they slept, drank, got sick, or are carrying fatigue you haven't accounted for.

How to measure it so the number means something

The measurement is only comparable if the conditions are. Resting means genuinely at rest: the client has been lying or seated quietly for several minutes, hasn't just climbed stairs, hasn't had coffee, and isn't talking through it. The gold-standard moment is on waking, before getting out of bed, because it removes almost every confounder at once.

Manually, find the radial pulse at the wrist or the carotid at the neck, count for 30 seconds and double it, or count a full 60 seconds if the rhythm feels irregular. Take it three mornings in a row and average them rather than trusting a single reading.

• Same position every time: lying, or seated with back supported. The two give different numbers.
• Several minutes of stillness first. No caffeine, nicotine or exercise beforehand.
• Average three consecutive mornings rather than trusting one.
• Note the conditions alongside the number: illness, alcohol, travel, poor sleep.

Typical ranges

The ranges below are the standard orientation values for adults. They describe populations, not individuals, and where someone falls inside them is far less informative than which direction their own number is moving.

Using it as a readiness signal

Once a client has an established personal baseline, a morning reading well above it is worth reacting to. Poor sleep, alcohol, heat, illness coming on, dehydration and accumulated training fatigue all push it up. None of those is a diagnosis, and none of them tells you which cause is in play, but together they tell you that today probably isn't the day for the heaviest session of the block.

Treat it as one input among several rather than a rule. A single elevated morning after a late night doesn't justify rewriting the week. A pattern of elevated mornings across a fortnight, alongside flat performance and poor sleep, is a much stronger case for pulling volume back.

Wearables, and where the coach stops

Almost every wearable now reports a resting heart rate, usually derived from the lowest sustained values overnight rather than from a morning count. That is a legitimate measure, and it is often more consistent than a manual reading because the device takes it the same way every night. It is not, however, the same number as a manual morning count, so pick one source per client and stay with it. Comparing last month's watch figure to this month's finger count produces a change that isn't real.

Scope matters here too. A persistently very high or very low resting heart rate, an irregular rhythm, palpitations, dizziness or breathlessness at rest are all reasons to send the client to a doctor. You report what you measured and you refer. You do not interpret a rhythm, and you never suggest a client adjust a medication that affects heart rate.