Your resting heart rate can be a useful indicator of the health of your ticker – and the key thing to keep in mind is age. It’s no new thing for the simple beat-per-minute measurement to regarded as a critical health metric. It is commonly thought that the lower your heart rate the fitter you are because it is having to work less hard to pump blood around your body.
Measuring our heart rates has become increasingly easy recently thanks to the popularisation of smart watches, meaning millions of people have access to real-time, hassle free data in the blink of an eye. But despite this, as reported by MailOnline, the number projected by smart watches for resting heart rates may not be entirely reliable as an indicator of heart health. On top of this, what is actually deemed healthy for you will depend on both your age and sex.
(Image: Getty Images)
Common thinking on the matter is that, generally speaking, for men the 60-100 range is healthy, although this can change with age. According research from the University of Gothenburg and led by Dr Salim Bary Barywani, 50-year-old blokes with a heart rate of 75 were twice as likely to die within the next 20 years than men with a resting rate of 55.
The results, published in the British Medical Journal’s publication Open Heart, didn’t stop there. It also said that each extra bpm increased the risk of death by 3%. Meanwhile, separate research from the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) states that ideal heart rate is sub 60, which means it is largely in the range of 47 to 57 bpm.
However, this is thought to only account for 10% of people. Meanwhile, research published by Central Ohio Primary Care, reports the rate for men aged 18-25 categorised as that of an athlete is 40-52, while for a 26-35-year-old bloke that range is 44-50. It also suggests that the maximum range for men of any age to be in the ‘average’ bracket, they would need to fit into the wider range of 66-71, although depending on age, this number will fluctuate slightly.
All in all, what indicates a healthy heart rate comes down to age, with doctors also adding that each individual is different. However, they are warning that over reliance on smart watches with a number of things, including how tightly you wear it, having an impact. Meanwhile, other elements like the colour of a person’s skin or the placement of tattoos can reportedly also have an impact on the reliability of the reading.
According to the same source, the following ranges are healthy for men, with each range corresponding to an age range in bold:
- Age 18-25 26-35 36-45 46-55 56-65 65+
- Athlete 40-52 44-50 47-53 49-54 51-56 52-55
- Excellent 56-61 55-61 57-62 58-63 57-61 56-61
- Good 62-65 62-65 63-66 64-67 62-67 62-65
- Above Average 66-69 66-70 67-70 68-71 68-71 66-69
- Average 70-73 71-74 71-75 72-76 72-75 70-73
- Below Average 74-81 75-81 76-82 77-83 76-81 74-79
- Poor 82+ 82+ 83+ 84+ 82+ 80+
And for women:
- Age 18-25 26-35 36-45 46-55 56-65 65+
- Athlete 40-48 42-46 45-49 48-54 50-55 52-55
- Excellent 61-65 60-64 60-64 61-65 60-64 60-64
- Good 66-69 65-68 65-69 66-69 65-68 65-68
- Above Average 70-73 69-72 70-73 70-73 69-73 69-72
- Average 74-78 73-76 74-78 74-77 74-77 73-76
- Below Average 79-84 77-82 79-84 78-83 78-83 77-84
- Poor 85+ 83+ 85+ 84+ 84+ 84+
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