Some questions about HR recovery rate

neeb

I've seen various figures for what is a good rate of HR recovery in the first minute after a good level of exertion, but a few things aren't clear.

Does it make much of a difference for measuring the recovery rate whether you continue pedaling at a gentle recovery pace or if you stop dead? (not literally of course.. )

Does the recovery rate depend on the level of exertion, or is it pretty much constant above a certain level? My own observations suggest that the drop in bpm in the first minute is about the same whether I start from 180, 170 or 160bmp.

Is recovery rate influenced by aging in the same way that HRmax is, or should you be able to get the same rates at any age if you are just as fit?

meanredspider

The only issue I have with this test is how to measure it.

Typically HR is measured over a given period (manually typically 30s) by which time your HR will have dropped further. I'm not sure how electronic HRMs measure HR - do they average over a period and, if so, what?

I think it needs to be taken fully resting.

ut_och_cykla

my understanding is....
Recovery rate (for HR) is probably most affected by how much lactate has to be dealt with and how good your body is at dealing with it - as there is a certain 'pay back time' after exertion that creates more lactate than your body thinks is ok.
So if you're lactate tolerant the pay backtime is short /HR falls quickly. If you've got lots of lactate - slower HR drop. As to whether dead stop or gentle recovery - clearing lactate is probaly better done if blood is kept flowing through affected area. Dead stop just means stagnation to a certain extent.
But I may be wrong!

amaferanga

I don't think it really tells you much (unless you were to follow EXACTLY the same protocol each time you tried to measure it) so its not worth worrying about.

danowat

amaferanga wrote:

I don't think it really tells you much (unless you were to follow EXACTLY the same protocol each time you tried to measure it) so its not worth worrying about.

Has been my take on it, I think there are better indicators of fitness

overgeared

i wouldn't worry too much about "good" and "bad" rates of recovery due to the aforementioned difficulties in defining and measuring that rate. all you need to know is that the fitter you get the faster you will recover from whatever effort (you'll feel it without even measuring it) and concentrate on the training that will make this happen.

neeb

Ok, seems like the consensus is that this isn't a very useful measurement.

Bozman

This all gets very confusing to me because i was informed by the cardio man that your resting heart rate has squat to do with your fitness level it's your recovery rate but he still classed me as athletic.
This came to light after i had a check up at the cardio ward due to AF issues, my RHR was in the late 30s on my first ecg and ended up leveling out at 42bpm(usually goes down not up!).
I'm an unfit 42yr old, i lv beer, my diet is horrendous but my RHR is classed as athletic, if i averaged 20mph on a ride you'd have to shoot me, i'm a steady 18mph solo man.

neeb

This all gets very confusing to me because i was informed by the cardio man that your resting heart rate has squat to do with your fitness level it's your recovery rate but he still classed me as athletic.

I think the idea that I am getting from other posts is that recovery rate IS very strongly influenced by fitness, it's just that it's difficult to measure consistently. Resting HR is certainly also certainly influenced by fitness, but different people have very different rates to begin with (so it's only a good measure relative to yourself), and there may be other factors that can cause low Resting HR (so just because you have a low RHR doesn't necessarily mean you are fit?).

I must admit I don't quite get why recovery rate is supposedly so difficult to define and measure - at least on the indoor trainer, if I go at 180, 170 or 160bpm after a decent warmup and then start pedaling at gentle recovery rate, my HR after 1 minute is always roughly the same number of beats less than it was at the start of the minute. Sometime I'll try stopping completely (no warmdown) and see if that makes any difference. I suspect it won't make a big difference as long as the recovery pedaling is at a level of exertion that would normally only requite an HR less than the rate your heart would be at after 1 minute whatever you did.