Hey guys, I was wondering what the best way to lower your resting heart rate is? Would doing high intensity exercises such as sprints or running distance be better? I've been getting a little weird feeling in my chest like there is a weight resting over the heart and I want to do more cardio. Thanks.
I don't like "weird" feelings anywhere, but if I had one in my chest, I would B-Line to a doctor. Aerobic conditioning is best for improving heart rate. I think specifically the range for cardiovascular conditioning is 80%-90% of max intensity. Your max intensity is 220 minus your age. But I dunno about that, the people with the lowest heart rates in the world are the endurance athletes like cyclists and distance swimmers and triathletes, but I have to believe that even as well-conditioned as they are, they can't maintain this intensity for 3 hours (which is the range in which they compete, so I assume it's the range in which they train). A friend of mine performed tests on Lance Armstrong at UC Davis. His resting heart rate was around 30 beats per minute. On the hardest setting with the exercise bike, they could never get his heart rate above 60. That, my friends, is a motherfucking freak!
Why people have to lie on forums is beyond me. Lance Armstrong's heart is amazing yes. But not in that way. He is able to keep his heart rate at ABOVE 200 beat per minute, which would make most people sicker than a dog or possibly have a heart attack. If your heart beat is at 60 beats, you are NOT working out. This information was from the discovery channel show on Lance. It also said he is able to hold more O2 in his blood, has a bigger heart, produces less lactic acid in his muscles, etc.
If you workout a lot, your body may not be recovering correctly. I can take my HR at rest the day after working out and if I did'nt eat right/enough, it can be 10-20 BPM higher than usual.
220-age is your predicted max HR. This is theoretical. The true way to find out is do a max stress test. I've done an all out run where I hit 208 bpms wearing a POLAR. That would make me 12 years old. Here's Karvonen's Formula from some random web site: http://www.atlanticpedaler.com/wes_01_heart_rate.html
If he can hold more O2 in his blood, why would his heart need to pump faster/longer than the average schmo. I'm not an expert, but to me it would make sense if he has trained hard and right all his life for his resting heart rate to be lower and the point where he starts going aerobic and anarobic higher. In my own experience as I've upped the duration and intensity of my workouts on an elliptical machine I find that in subsequent workouts that its more difficult to reach my target heart rate with the same effort as previous workouts. Meaning I have to work harder to make the transition from my resting heart rate to about 156 (220 - 25)*80%. To me it would seem to make sense that increasing intensity and duration of workouts (as Lance Armstrong has no doubt done over and over throughout the years) would result in a widening of the "band" between your resting heart rate and your actual max heart rate (before bad things start happening). So your probably actually pulling down your resting heart rate while at the same time pushing up the upper limits on your hearts performance. You average dude gets up and jogs a mile he's gonna go from resting heart rate to full on anabolic really quick. He probably won't make it through the whole mile. A fit person gets up and starts jogging and he'll probably break a sweat but will finish the mile. Take an athlete who has been training to run a mile at an all out sprint and tell him to jog and his heart rate will probably not even flicker. Tell him to kick it up to full blast and he'll probably have a heart rate well over his theoretical max. Have the first two guys get their heart rates up to that number and they'll probably keel over and die.
