Glossary
Resting heart rate
Also called RHR, resting pulse
How many times your heart beats per minute while you are fully at rest. For adults it is usually 60 to 100 beats per minute, and lower in well-trained athletes.
Resting heart rate (RHR) is your pulse when you have been sitting or lying quietly for a while. MedlinePlus gives a normal range of 60 to 100 beats per minute for adults and children aged 10 and over, and 40 to 60 for well-trained athletes. Devices measure it in different ways, some during sleep and some in a daytime check, so compare your number with your own past readings from the same device.
Heart rate and HRV are linked. When the heart beats more slowly, each interval between beats is longer, and there is more room for those intervals to vary. Sacha’s review explains that this link is partly physiological, because the same nervous system controls both, and partly mathematical, because of how intervals and rate relate. Sacha also notes that heart rate affects how repeatable HRV readings are, and that any change in heart rate should be taken into account when two HRV readings are compared. In practice, when your HRV moves, check whether your resting heart rate moved too. Reading the two numbers together gives a fuller picture than either one alone.
Talk to a doctor if your resting heart rate is often above 100, or below 60 when you are not a trained athlete, or if your pulse feels irregular.
The lesson What your heartbeat is really doing covers heart rate first, and HRV vs resting heart rate compares the two.