Training effect on resting heart rate

[Jerome]

Hi All,

Based on your personal experience, which kind of training had the most significant effect on your resting heart rate?

I’ve been tracking my RHR for a while now and don’t see much difference when doing interval training. The most significant drop I’ve noticed was after a block of mixed easy and hard SS efforts.

Curious to know what your experiences are!

[mjk]

Changes in RHR will mainly occur due to changes in cardiac stroke volume.

A few quotes pulled from this: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/do ... 1&type=pdf show that improving your VO2 max though doing interval training can show imporvmenents in stroke volume - which will likely produce decreases in RHR ( though that is not discussed in the study and was not the aim of the study)

"experiment shows that improvements in VO2max seem to be followed by similar improvements in SV (stroke volume)"

"Training at LSD and LT did not change the SV. We conclude that when total work and training frequency are matched, higher
aerobic intensity leads to larger improvements in VO2max"

"Interval training with longer intervals, like the 4x4 min training administered in this experiment, is thus recommended to improve VO2max."

This study: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18580415/ also supports the argument that higher intensity training will increase VO2 max

This isnt to say that other intensities do not have their benefit. There are benefits to varying intentities and duration of aerobic exercise.

[jamesg]

Depends mostly on age, from what I see. At school and afloat 5 days a week 65 years ago I was at RHR 45-48. Now and about 15k a week at 120-140W on erg, RHR=58-60 (with an assortment of pills).

Normal rowing is lots of long hard strokes which in theory cannot fail to grow the heart and so let it beat slower at rest. Whether you pull those strokes in intervals or continuous won't make much difference.

Recently I've found sets of 4 to 6 five minute intervals rowed full length, at low rate and force 38-40 kg, plus a little hill-walking, are very effective. But at my age almost anything is so long as I take long enough to get some strength back (as in freestyle swimming).

Race training usually starts with high volume, hard work, low ratings, to acquire technique, speed, endurance and a large heart, all needed for the higher rate work closer to racing.

[Dangerscouse]

I haven't ever properly tracked RHR, but I'd guess it's got to be dictated by building a stronger heart through a variety of different exercises, and intensities.

I'm not sure if there is a theoretical limit to your RHR, but the stimulus will have to be strong enough to provoke change.

[johnlvs2run]

Breath holding practice helps quite a bit.
The longer you can hold your breath, probably the lower your resting heart rate will be.

[frankencrank]

Resting HR is a measure of aerobic fitness. Want to lower your resting HR, improve your aerobic fitness. Long, moderate efforts day after day will do it. When I was a fit ultra marathoner my resting HR was 35.

Resting HR reflects what your heart does per stroke volume. Your oxygen demand doesn't change so you must increase the amount of blood you pump each beat to reduce your HR. It turns out that relaxing the heart, to let it stretch more, also takes energy and that is improved with aerobic training.

[Tsnor]

If you are training a lot and your resting heart rate is flat or rising then heads up. Rising resting heart rate is one of the clear signs of too much high intensity work. Your Resting Heart rate could be balanced between improvements from exercise and overdoing it.

Exercise will lower resting heart rate. Seems your choice to go with low intensity or high - the published studies conflict.

Many references point explicitly to long/slow training as most effective, for example "Endurance training increases parasympathetic activity and decreases sympathetic activity in the human heart at rest. These two training-induced autonomic effects, coupled with a possible reduction in intrinsic heart rate, decrease resting heart rate. " https://link.springer.com/article/10.21 ... 3010-00003

Other references claim high intensity is better than low intensity "However, the decrease in HR after training was more pronounced after HI compared with LI training " https://www.nature.com/articles/jhh200951

Example of overreach/overtraining warning.

"if you’re training at an intense level but not allowing your body enough time to rest, you may notice ‘hey, my resting heart rate has gone up!’ This is a sign that you need to give your body the time to repair properly so it can absorb the benefits of your workouts. Otherwise, all that hard work could end up having a detrimental effect." https://www.polar.com/blog/resting-heart-rate/ "

[Jerome]

Anyone experience with ‘hidden’ overtraining?

My heart rate has been quite stable over time, no significant peaks,etc. However, during my last vacation and break away from training I noticed that my RHR dropped significantly and my sleep quality improved. When I picked up my training RHR settled back to pre-vacation normal.

[frankencrank]

Anyone experience with ‘hidden’ overtraining?

My heart rate has been quite stable over time, no significant peaks,etc. However, during my last vacation and break away from training I noticed that my RHR dropped significantly and my sleep quality improved. When I picked up my training RHR settled back to pre-vacation normal.

If you are training you are always slightly overtrained. The question is really only how much. If you got an important race coming up that is why you taper.

[Tsnor]

Anyone experience with ‘hidden’ overtraining?

My heart rate has been quite stable over time, no significant peaks, etc. However, during my last vacation and break away from training I noticed that my RHR dropped significantly and my sleep quality improved. When I picked up my training RHR settled back to pre-vacation normal.

Yes. Somehow I convinced myself I could do 3 days a week of long/slow work at HR =140 plus 3 days of erg intervals. I started in Nov, everything good for about 6 weeks, by May my resting HR was 7 bpm higher than when I started. Not smart.

If you are not sure your are overreaching and have a good HR monitor like polar h10 then you can cross check using heart rate variability HRV with free eliteHRV ap. My HRV fell 10 points April to Sept, I assumed measurement error.

Another good indicator is your max HR. My max is back to where I expect it. For a while it was lower.

Good podcast here. https://www.fasttalklabs.com/fast-talk/ ... d-burnout/

[johnlvs2run]

Resting HR is a measure of aerobic fitness. Want to lower your resting HR, improve your aerobic fitness. Long, moderate efforts day after day will do it. When I was a fit ultra marathoner my resting HR was 35.

My resting heart rate was 35 bpm measured on numerous occasions at age 19 when competing in track and cross country. After taking up running again my 30's, running much higher mileage and bettering my times from 2 miles and quite substantially through quite a few marathons and beyond, my lowest resting heart rate was 42 bpm.

Top distance cyclist Chris Boardman said he had a resting heart rate of 38 at his peak.
Top free divers typically have quite low resting heart rates, yet they do little to no aerobic training.
Additionally, there was a national class 440 yard sprinter in the 1950s who had a resting heart rate of 28 bpm.

Thus I disagree with your generalization. However, I would agree that aerobic training can lower the maximum heart rate due to increasing blood volume. Distance athletes typically have lower maximum heart rates due to higher blood volumes, and sprinters typically have quite high maximum heart rates and lower blood volumes.

[frankencrank]

Resting HR is a measure of aerobic fitness. Want to lower your resting HR, improve your aerobic fitness. Long, moderate efforts day after day will do it. When I was a fit ultra marathoner my resting HR was 35.

My resting heart rate was 35 bpm measured on numerous occasions at age 19 when competing in track and cross country. After taking up running again my 30's, running much higher mileage and bettering my times from 2 miles and quite substantially through quite a few marathons and beyond, my lowest resting heart rate was 42 bpm.

Top distance cyclist Chris Boardman said he had a resting heart rate of 38 at his peak.
Top free divers typically have quite low resting heart rates, yet they do little to no aerobic training.
Additionally, there was a national class 440 yard sprinter in the 1950s who had a resting heart rate of 28 bpm.

Thus I disagree with your generalization. However, I would agree that aerobic training can lower the maximum heart rate due to increasing blood volume. Distance athletes typically have lower maximum heart rates due to higher blood volumes, and sprinters typically have quite high maximum heart rates and lower blood volumes.

A low resting HR depends upon the hearts ability to relax and, therefore, have a high stroke volume. There are outliers in everything and, of course, physiological findings are age related. But, on average, resting HR is a good indicator of aerobic fitness. (and an increase in resting HR could be a sign of over training). My resting HR of about 35 occurred in my mid to late 30's when I was running marathons and ultra-marathons.

I disagree that the low resting HR in distance athletes is due to increased blood volume.

Those free divers are probably exhibiting a form of the dive reflex. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK538245/

[johnlvs2run]

on average, resting HR is a good indicator of aerobic fitness

Jim Ryun had a resting heart rate of 60 bpm. Was he an outlier too.

A low resting HR depends upon the hearts ability to relax and, therefore, have a high stroke volume.

I disagree that the low resting HR in distance athletes is due to increased blood volume.

You're contradicting yourself.
Cardiac Output = Heart Rate X the Blood Volume pumped by the heart.
A high cardiac output is not important at rest, but is extremely important at maximum efforts.

[frankencrank]

on average, resting HR is a good indicator of aerobic fitness

Jim Ryun had a resting heart rate of 60 bpm. Was he an outlier too.

A low resting HR depends upon the hearts ability to relax and, therefore, have a high stroke volume.

I disagree that the low resting HR in distance athletes is due to increased blood volume.

You're contradicting yourself.
Cardiac Output = Heart Rate X the Blood Volume pumped by the heart.
A high cardiac output is not important at rest, but is extremely important at maximum efforts.

Blood volume is a term that means the total blood volume of the body. Stroke volume is the volume of blood pumped with each contraction.

[Carl Watts]

Personally I would not put everything into resting HR to determine your level of fitness.

Your better off at looking at HR recovery rates AFTER intensive exercise.

Its something I have pushed to be incorporated into the Concept 2 PM for years. The second you stop rowing the clock starts and the PM continues to log your rate of HR decay while you just sit on the rower. This is far more telling than just a low resting HR, which in itself tells you vey little unless you recorded it while you were very unfit as a comparison because you cannot do a direct comparison from yours to anyone else's.

The clock runs for 2 or 3 minutes and you look at the time for say a drop from 180 to 120bpm. This is a better test of your whole cardio system as the faster the recovery the fitter you are.

It used to take mine 3 minutes to go from 180 to 120 but it would plateau from that point and take another 2 or 3 minutes to get to below 100 because its an exponential type decay.

"100" was the magical figure but obviously it wants to be a set point between your MAX HR and your RESTING HR so the actual number will be different for everyone and only then can you start making some comparisons.

I used to do it all the time with just a stopwatch but it would be far better done on the monitor, it could even graph the decay and stop the clock at a preset HR and it could be stored in your LogBook as a "Recovery Time".

Get yourself a stopwatch and try it.

The only thing you need to be aware of its that short sprint peaks recover faster than say a session that stayed at you Max HR for a sustained period. You would have to compare apples with apples i.e. 30 minute rows with other 30 minute rows of similar intensity. Comparing say a 30min with a 2K that all you did is a short sprint finish at the end to spike your HR is not the same.