Training & Nutrition - Resting Heart Rate Phoenomenon

OK. Does the following resting heart rate pattern indicate being on the brink of overtraining? I feel fine and am not going hard at all and have a very solid base. I also know that resting heart rate alone is not a strong indicator of a problem, but this pattern I don't remember ever experiencing before so it concerns me.

3/24 - Resting heart rate = 41. I ride for ~90min at an aerobic heart rate (a moderate ride for me).
3/25 - Resting heart rate = 50. Take a recovery day.
3/26 - Resting heart rate = 48. Take a recovery day.
3/27 - Resting heart rate = 46. Take a recovery day.
3/28 - Resting heart rate = 42. Moderate group ride for 90min.
3/29 - Resting heart rate = 48. Take a recovery day.
3/30 - Resting heart rate = 45. Take a recovery day. Resting heart rate not necessarily bad, but have visitors in town, so can't ride.
3/31 - Resting heart rate = 44. Moderate ride for ~90min.
4/1 - Resting heart rate = 50.

See the pattern? Is this normal? Should I be taking recovery days when my RHR is +6 even if all other signs are OK?

One thing I think I'm going to consider to help is an aerobic time trial once per week to gauge fitness level.

I just attended yet another Sally Edwards seminar last week about training, and they went through this too- they said if your resting hr is 5 beats higher than normal, take a recovery day until your resting heart rate is back to normal ranges again.

Looks like you're doing a good job of it...

Koffee

Can't help ya fstr, unless you're seriously underestimating your effort (I don't think you are).

I question the "5 beats higher than normal." I'd expect the increase to be a percentage of your normal resting HR.

I'm hardly normal, but my RHR is 35 beats/minute, and when I'm overtraining it jumps a walloping one or two beats a minute. (But then, 2 beats is ~6% increase, which is not insignificant, IMO.) It'll stay high a day or two, and then drop.

The 5 beats higher than normal is what they did give as an overtraining variable. To take it one step further- they said that if you train, then the next morning, your heart rate is more than 5 beats higher, take that day as a recovery. Until your heart rate comes back down, your body is overtired, so listen to your biofeedback and take the rest.

They also had other ways of determining if you needed a longer recovery. All were good ideas- I plan on using one of them on my students in my indoor cycling classes if they want to determine if they are overtraining (as a lot of them usually are).

I'll check through some of Sally's books I have and see if they talk about the different types of tests you can do to determine if you need a recovery day or not.


Koffee

Do you drink Soda or Coffee? Anything with caffiene in it will effect your HR.

I ride hard several days in a row no matter what my HR does..Then I take a day or two off and then back into the grind..Basically I go in two blocks, the first being low volume high intensity, and then the next going to high volume low intensity. I also taper in a 4 week cycle.

It seems to me you'll never get anywhere if you take a break everytime your HR tells you you are tired.

Sounds like a big change to me. I usually vary one or two beats.

Are the rides in the evening, do you take youe resting rate before getting out of bed?

Agreed, it is a big change. Yes, I take it before getting out of bed.


Originally posted by Richard Cranium
Sounds like a big change to me. I usually vary one or two beats.

Are the rides in the evening, do you take youe resting rate before getting out of bed?

I have to be extremely careful and stealthy when taking my heart rate before I get out of bed in the morning. If my wife catches me, she inevitably calls me a "health nut."

Originally posted by trmcgeehan
I have to be extremely careful and stealthy when taking my heart rate before I get out of bed in the morning. If my wife catches me, she inevitably calls me a "health nut."

I've gotten snarky comments like that from my wife too. Here's my stealthy way to take HR: roll over and gently jam your ear into the pillow. You can hear your pulse that way. Then just look at the sweep hand of the clock on your nightstand. Simple, reliable, stealthy.

FYI - I use a tanita HRM to test my waking HR and love it. Just push the button and put you finger on the sensor and viola!! Only drawback is that there is no backlight so I have to use a mini flashlight. Perhaps I'll write the company and recommend that they add a backlight, but still ultra cool!!!!!