Heart Rate: A Proxy for Good Health and Wellness
Author - Ravi Kulkarni On February 5th 2023, my body felt very hot after my daily exercise. My heart was racing and it would not stop even after several hours. As far as I can recall, I had not done anything different that day – it was the usual 40 minutes of resistance training, 10-15 minutes of cardio, 15 minutes in the sauna. As you see from the screenshot above, my resting heart rate (RHR) on that day was 99, alarmingly high. In those days it was normal for my RHR to be in the higher 60s. Subsequently it came down and I have not experienced such high rates after that. Unfortunately, I don’t really have an explanation for this event other than to say that I may have over exerted myself. But that got me thinking: could heart rate be a useful metric for keeping track of one’s health? RHR is defined as the number of heartbeats per minute while at rest. For most adults, a normal RHR ranges from 60 to 100 beats per minute. Athletes or more active individuals often have lower rates, ...