Increase in resting heart rate

Medical Q&A [Moderated]
1

Hi Drs-

I have experienced an increase in resting heart rate in the last few months, from about 42-45 bpm to about 56-57 bpm. I measured them upon waking (before getting out of bed) and they were both fairly consistent for their respective time periods. I know you in general don’t think overtraining is a real concern, so I’ve been dismissive about that as a potential cause. Is such an increase a cause for concern?

Some background: 40 y/o male, 6’2, 195 lbs, ~32.5" waist. I generally adapt/perform better to aerobic threshold conditioning than aerobic work

Some recent changes in the last couple of months:

  • Training: I’m a couple months into the 4-day low fatigue template. Prior to that, I liked to follow some of Ross Enamait’s programs, which tend to be more HIIT/interval/metcon heavy. The previous workouts were much shorter in duration (rarely lasting more than 45 minutes, and conditioning workouts rarely more than 20 min and little to no LISS). The low-fatigue template seems to have me spending more time in the gym, but I’ve had pretty good strength gains during that period and feel like I’ve adapted to the change well.

-Diet: Over the last few months I’ve been much more diligent about tracking my calorie intake. I’m shooting for about a 600 calorie daily deficit, which puts me at about 2,600 calories on most days. I’ve been able to lose about 8 lbs over roughly 2 months. I stopped drinking morning coffee in the months that coincided with my change in training (the exception is a morning serving on Sunday with my significant other).

Supplements: I’ve switched to BBM whey (about 1 serving per day) and stopped taking New Chapter Men’s daily multivitamin. For a pre-workout, there’s been no change between periods: I still take beta-alanine, creatine, caffeine, and B6/B12. I also take zinc and magnesium daily (no change in usage pattern between the two HR phases).

FWIW, I did get Covid just before the switch in training. Although vaccinated, it made me sicker than I’ve probably been in nearly a decade, although I feel like I made a full recovery in about 2.5 weeks.

Given all that, should I be looking at other changes to see if I can get my resting HR back down to where it was previously?

2

This is not too surprising in the aftermath of a significant respiratory infection, and for people who are affected by it in this way it can take a while before things normalize again.

If you are otherwise feeling well / doing fine with your training, there is nothing else I would recommend in the short term for this.

1 Like
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Got it, thanks for the reply Dr!