What is normal for you? What to expect when you track your normal waking heart rate.
Resource: Daily Diary – simple templated record keeping for your training diary
3 value bombs
- Know how fit you are and if you’re trending fitter or not
- Get early warnings of viral infection
- Keep a simple record to track yourself long term
Timestamps
00:50 This is important as we age. It’s a free way to track your physical wellbeing. I found out about it from Harry Mahon, the New Zealand rowing coach. Resting heart rate is important for masters because we are too good at “keeping going”. Knowing how well you are is key to how you approach training and to give you confidence.
03:00 What is resting heart rate useful for?
In the longer term it’s an indicator of your fitness. The lower your resting heart rate the fitter you are. Heart rates are very individual – what’s normal for you is not the same as mine.
It’s also useful to determine your readiness to train today. Waking heart rates when tracked regularly show you what number is normal for you. After one week you will see your numbers and what’s normal.
The resting heart rate can show if you are incubating an illness – viral or bacterial. It shows up in your resting heart rate before you see symptoms. Before you get symptoms your heart is already responding to the illness. This could also be stress, poor sleep or dehydration – it’s not always illness. The heart rate jumps up 10 beats per minute when suffering an illness.
07:00 After being sick and wanting to go rowing again, I have gone out when I still have symptoms but find doing a medium intensity workout helps to clear the final symptoms of the virus. The normal pulse precedes this.
08:15 How to find your pulse
There are two easy places – the side of your neck or the wrist – find your pulse on the thumb side about 2 cm from the wrist joint – use two fingers to locate it (not your thumb because there’s a pulse in your thumb).
Take a one minute reading or 30 seconds and double the score. When you start counting, make the first pulse zero and then one, two, three etc. Keep a daily record – use this free daily training diary from our website – to record your training, overnight health and hydration state.
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