Wednesday, June 30, 2010

I'm coming after you, W!

    I aspire to be like Geo. W. Bush in only one way (two, if you count his millions): his resting heart rate. W's was notoriously low - reports are from 44 to 52 beats per minute - which makes me wonder if he got rattled by anything in that little post he held for 8 years.
     This afternoon, I was thrilled to clock my heart rate at 54 BPM, which is considerably lower than my count of 72 four weeks ago and puts me solidly in the "Athlete" category, according to this chart.
    Thanks, Curves!  I haven't been called an "athlete" since high school and, even then, no one could say it with a straight face.

4 comments:

Nebraska Kim said...

Congrats, but I might be a wee bit suspicious of that much change in just four weeks and chalk it up to monitor anomaly unless it stays low like that for several days/weeks.

My RHR ranges between 72 and 68, and I run, lift weights, etc., daily for 25 years (I'm 55). When I was at peak condition, in my 30s, my RHR did dip into the upper 50s but that was after years of conditioning (such as teaching between 15 and 21 step aerobic classes/week). Keep up the good work, though as you are clearly doing the right thing.

Cathy Hamilton said...

Kim, I won't even call you a buzz kill as I suspected it might have been an aberration. Today it was 66. I should have added that my RHR has always been a tad lower than average my whole life. Only in the last couple of years did it creep into the 70s. The ultimate goal is to go off BP meds and be "med free" at 55. We'll see. Thanks.

Carol Starr Schneider said...

Buzz kill, indeed. You are a goddess. 'Nuff said.

Nebraska Kim said...

Sorry. I was just trying to say don't use just one measurement. I have the opposite "problem" in that my working heart rate always runs high. Now, for someone my age, my max WHR shouldn't exceed about 150. My WHR soars into the 170s and low 180s right away, then when I stop running, dumps back to normal pretty quickly. I never feel stressed or that I'm working too hard. The deal is to just keep doing what works for you.

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