Resting Heartrate

You can use your Resting Heart Rate as a good measure of your improvement and adapatation to your training.

Measure your Resting Heart Rate (RHR) every morning for a week, and take the average. It will give you a good starting fitness point.

Every four weeks or so, take it for a week again, measure the average. Hopefully, you'll find that your RHR is getting lower. This would indicate that you are getting fitter. Why? Because when you are unfit your heart has to work a lot harder which increases your heart rate. So the number of beats per minute will be higher. The best time to take your RHR is first thing in the morning when you wake up. Ideally, when you've woken without an alarm clock ( e.g. on a weekend), and you've got an empty stomach. If you've woken up with an alarm clock, wait a couple of minutes before you take the measurement.

If you find over time that you get a spike in your RHR, can be a good indication that you are overtraining, because your body is fighting too hard to adapt to the stress that you are putting on it. Or it may be a sign that you are getting a cold or stress, since an increase in Heart Rate is one of the first signs that your body is fighting off something.

Since so many factors can affect an individual reading, I recommend taking it as an average over a week. You can take an individual reading as your result if you think it is a good indication.

If anyone is getting a reading of less than 35, then give Lance Armstrong's team a call. His was 32-34!!
regards,
Coach David