Waking heart rate - how do you take yours????

Kirky

This may sound like a stupid question - but how do people take their resting heart rate?? I want to start to monitor mine and see how it varies (early warning signs of illness etc) but I'm RUBBISH first thing in the morning!! What routine do people do to remember to take it - and how do you take it? i.e. do you leave your HRM by your bed, strap it on when the alarm goes off, go back till sleep once you've pressed snooze for the first time and then check it when the alarm goes off again?? Or do you just try and take your pulse using the finger in the neck job!!

Cheers

KIRKY

ut_och_cykla

Finger/neck, clock with seconds hand (HRM monitor watch etc)
Wake up, kill the clock. Wait a minute or two to calm down!
take pulse over 15 secs then x 4
wait a minute or two repeat 15 secs measurement. Similar value - probably won't get lower that day.

If you're wrenched from REM sleep or badly Need a we* pulse might be a bit high initially. waitiing (or we*ing and then going back to bed ) lets it settle. Practice daily, then check weekly or when you think somethings amiss. +10 or more beats is sign you should take it easy

Kirky

Cheers, will try the finger in the neck job for 15 seconds - although I'll have to try not to go back to sleep!! And better find a watch with a decent sized second hand - really don't think I'll be able to focus on the second hand on my watch I wear during the day!!

KIRKY

campagman

I'm not too good first thing and find that the shock of my alarm raises the pulse too much. I find that the best place to take my pulse is when I'm having a dump at work. Obviously between movements. I count pulse over 15 secs. I do an office job so my pulse is not raised by my work.

PhilthyPhil

I leave my HRM by the bed and do it before I get up. I run the Polar Optimizer test which consists of lying down for a few minutes then standing up and standing still for a few minutes. It then give resting, peak and standing heart rates and tells you what your state of recovery is based on the baseline of previously established readings. I avoid using my alarm as is messes up the readings and I don't really have a problem waking up without it.

Kirky

campagman wrote:

I'm not too good first thing and find that the shock of my alarm raises the pulse too much. I find that the best place to take my pulse is when I'm having a dump at work. Obviously between movements. I count pulse over 15 secs. I do an office job so my pulse is not raised by my work.

LOL and you get paid to do it, almost makes you a pro rider doesn't it?????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

andrewgturnbull

Kirky wrote:

This may sound like a stupid question - but how do people take their resting heart rate?? I want to start to monitor mine and see how it varies (early warning signs of illness etc) but I'm RUBBISH first thing in the morning!! What routine do people do to remember to take it - and how do you take it? i.e. do you leave your HRM by your bed, strap it on when the alarm goes off, go back till sleep once you've pressed snooze for the first time and then check it when the alarm goes off again?? Or do you just try and take your pulse using the finger in the neck job!!

Cheers

KIRKY

Hi there.

I wait till I've got to work and fallen asleep again...

Cheers, Andy

BeaconRuth

andrewgturnbull wrote:

I wait till I've got to work and fallen asleep again...

I've never bothered with trying to measure my waking HR. I know it's often recommended but resting HR, especially when you've just been startled by an alarm clock, seems a highly unreliable thing to measure to me.

Out of interest, has anyone ever correctly deduced that they're coming down with something from their waking HR, before feeling any other symptoms?

Ruth

SteveR_100Milers

BeaconRuth wrote:

andrewgturnbull wrote:

I wait till I've got to work and fallen asleep again...

I've never bothered with trying to measure my waking HR. I know it's often recommended but resting HR, especially when you've just been startled by an alarm clock, seems a highly unreliable thing to measure to me.

Out of interest, has anyone ever correctly deduced that they're coming down with something from their waking HR, before feeling any other symptoms?

Ruth

acute alcohol poisoning!

ColinJ

BeaconRuth wrote:

Out of interest, has anyone ever correctly deduced that they're coming down with something from their waking HR, before feeling any other symptoms?

Ruth

I noticed that my waking heart rate had crept up from the low 30s to the mid 50s over a period of about 2 years. I deduced that I was coming down with a bad case of unfitness due to drinking too much beer and not doing enough cycling :? !!

ut_och_cykla

BeaconRuth wrote:

andrewgturnbull wrote:

I wait till I've got to work and fallen asleep again...

I've never bothered with trying to measure my waking HR. I know it's often recommended but resting HR, especially when you've just been startled by an alarm clock, seems a highly unreliable thing to measure to me.

Out of interest, has anyone ever correctly deduced that they're coming down with something from their waking HR, before feeling any other symptoms?

Ruth

Yes twice, tho' I wasn't completely symptom free. I'd had what I thought was a light cold and been feverish a few days before but woke up feeling poorly again. My waking pulse was over 90 (cf 52) and the following day my husband got the doctor in - double pneumonia. Clearly I was proper poorly - my pulse just confirmed what I knew already.

2nd time I had an electrical fault (due to Lyme disease) resting rate was 140!
Nuff said.

It does help to keep track of it for making those few should I/ shouldn't I decisions but like most other things you can do without too!

ColinJ

BeaconRuth wrote:

I've never bothered with trying to measure my waking HR. I know it's often recommended but resting HR, especially when you've just been startled by an alarm clock, seems a highly unreliable thing to measure to me.

Ruth

You're right about this. I measured my RHR once straight after my old alarm clock went off and it was way up in the 70s. I had to wake up properly and relax to get it back down again to its normal value.

I think this is actually telling us something about how unnatural and potentially unhealthy it is to be regularly startled awake at arbitrary points in one's sleep cycle. Ideally, one should go to bed early enough that an alarm clock is not necessary and wake up when one is good and ready. If that isn't practical, choose a less abrupt alarm.

I sleep with my bedroom window open - I live in a quiet backstreet so traffic noise isn't a problem. I noticed, however, that I sometimes got woken up before my alarm went off by the sound of a dog barking in the distance. Because this was a fairly quiet, natural sound, it didn't startle me the way that my alarm clock did and I always felt much better getting up those mornings.

I've now switched the alarm on my clock off, and use a dog bark ringtone on my phone instead. I've set the volume low so that I can hardly hear it and it takes a minute or so for it to percolate into my brain, by which time I'm ready to wake up.

Before I started using my dog bark alarm, I was interested in buying one of these 'Sunrise' alarm clocks. Seems like an interesting idea.

When I get new batteries for my pulse rate monitor I'll measure my RHR again straight after my dog bark alarm goes off and see what difference it makes being woken slowly.

andrewgturnbull

BeaconRuth wrote:

Out of interest, has anyone ever correctly deduced that they're coming down with something from their waking HR, before feeling any other symptoms?

Ruth

Hi there.

I feel cold/flu symptoms in my legs before anywhere else - especially in my quads.

Sometimes I wake up in the morning after an easy day's training, but my legs feel like I've been doing full on intervals - then I know I'm in trouble.

Which is how today started...

Cheers, Andy

Johnpsanderson

I do an office job so my pulse is not raised by my work.

I must be doing something wrong with my office job then! I used to try taking Resting HR in the morning. I'd wake up with the sunlight (it was in the summer of 2006), reach for the chest strap and grab the HRM then lie back in bed. After a few seconds i'd start thinking about work and my HR would rise, and rise, and rise....

Probably says more about my personality than my physical health!!!!

Alex_Simmons/RST

Why does everyone seem to need a HRM to take their morning pulse???

Jeff Jones

BeaconRuth wrote:

Out of interest, has anyone ever correctly deduced that they're coming down with something from their waking HR, before feeling any other symptoms?

Never. And along the same lines, it's never told me anything about how I'm going to feel on the bike. So I don't bother taking it any more.

BeaconRuth

Cheers Jeff, it's not just me then.

Ruth

Ric_Stern/RST

Not taken mine for years either. I know if i'm ill whether i take my RHR or not!

ric

crackle

funnily enough I take my RHR when I'm resting, waking up is never restfull. As for coming down with something, well I have a couple of indicators which may or may not be peculiar to me I don't know I've never asked. One is, my sense of smell improves dramatically just before I come down with a cold like virus and two is, I lose weight 0.5Kg or similiar within a few days. Seems like colds have a diuretic effect!

Wish I'd found a way of telling how I'm gonna do on the bike before I go out though!