A normal resting heart rate is found to be between 60 and 100 beats per minute. However, different factors need to be taken into account with each different individual. Higher resting heart rates might be seen in young children, while low resting heart rates are most likely found in well-trained endurance runners or triathletes.
William O. Roberts, MD, MS, family medicine physician with M Physicians and professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, spoke with Runner’s World about the differences in resting heart rates for different people.
“It is not unusual for healthy people involved in endurance activities to develop a bradycardia based on the increased vagal tone from training that suppresses heart rate,” states Dr. Roberts. “Training also increases the heart size so it can push out a greater volume of blood to the body with each contraction.”
Dr. Roberts explains further how a trained resting heart can deliver the same blood volume at a lower heart rate as an untrained heart can at a higher heart rate. This is a large part of why it takes runners that are taken out of commission through illness or injury time to retrain themselves in order to return to their previous state.