Why Athletes Have Low Resting Heart Rate

When it comes to keeping the human body alive and healthy, the heart plays one of the significant roles. With the responsibility of delivering blood throughout your body, noting your heart rate should become a habit. What most people don’t know is that when it comes measuring resting heart rate, different people have different results. That is because various factors like age and health can affect your resting heart rate.

However, it has been discovered that athletes have the low heart rate with 28 beats per minute being the lowest ever recorded. Some of the things that you could do to reach a heart rate that low include;

Workout

When you engage your body in physical exercises, the heart will begin to beat faster forcing your cardiovascular system to work harder. When you maintain working out, your cardiovascular system also works out to become more efficient. You should also know that working out also increases the blood capacity that can be pumped through circulation. It is safe to say that working out your body muscles also makes your heart muscles stronger hence capable of pumping blood throughout your body with just a few beats.

Get enough sleep

Lack of proper sleep can have a negative impact on your health. According to specialists, lack of sleep can lead to things like depression and stress. Both conditions can affect the rate at which your heart beats because they are emotional conditions. That means that even with your heart at its resting rate will still pump faster to cope with your tension. With good sleeping habit over time, you will avoid the brain and body from stress hence your heart will not be rushing to pump blood all the time.

Avoid stress

One of the reasons for high RHR is stress. It is important to know that the heartbeat rate is affected more by emotions than physical factors. That is why, you may improve your sleeping habit and started working out, but if you are stressed, your RHR will never drop. If you have realized that stress is the reason why you cannot attain a lo RHR, then deal with your stress instead. You should also know that there are so many ways of handling stress including physical workouts which will add to your efforts.

Avoid tobacco products

Smokers have fast heart rates because their cardiovascular systems have been tampered with. We all know that smoking cigarettes leads to blockage of blood vessels forcing the heart to beat faster and harder to deliver blood to the rest of the body. Since blood flow is being restricted, one can end up developing high blood pressure which can lead to stroke. All in all, nicotine, tar, and other components of cigarettes pose a great threat to the heart and cardiovascular system.

Conclusion

Having a low RHR is a good sign and also a bad one depending on who is having it. However, you should know that a low RHR is a sign that your heart is healthy and functioning better. That is because it does not require so much effort to keep you alive.