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Resting, Average Resting and minimum heart rates

What is the difference between "Resting", "Avg Resting" and minimum heart rates? Right now it tells me my "Resting" is 56 and my "Avg Resting" is 58.

I can only find the minimum on the watch itself, not the app or Garmin connect website, and it only shows the minimum of the last 4 hours. Right now, mine shows 53, but I have seen as low as 41 when awake, and upper 30's when asleep. The "Resting" rate is still listed in the 50's even when the minimum is displayed in the 40's, and it is not too unusual for the watch to show a current heart rate below the "Resting" heart rate, which makes no sense to me.

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0 WillNorthYork over 6 years ago

Minimum HR = not necessarily the same as resting, as you noticed
Average Resting HR = 7 day (rolling) average of resting HR (if you hover over the label on the GC website, it says "7 day average")
Resting HR = your resting HR, as determined by a Garmin algorithm (see below). I think the currently accepted way to measure this manually is to take your pulse after you wake up, but before you get out of bed.

https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?fa...Type=noProduct

Garmin devices that feature an optical heart rate sensor have the ability to calculate a user's resting heart rate (RHR) value on a daily basis. Below is how we determine the value that is displayed for RHR.

RHR: This value is for the current day. It is calculated one of two ways. For users that wear their device while sleeping, the device will read and record the average of all readings while they sleep, excluding periods where any steps were detected or the measured heart rate falls outside reasonable bounds. A minimum of four hours of sleep time is required to register a reading. For users that do not wear their device overnight, RHR is determined as the lowest average reading over a one minute time period during the day.

7-day Average RHR: Some devices will display a 7-day average value which is the daily average resting heart rate over the last seven days. It is a rolling value and does not reset at the beginning of each week.

The way Garmin measures RHR is a little controversial (and the implementation has changed over time for some devices), but it is what it is. There is a certain amount of logic to taking the lowest one minute average, tho. When you take your pulse manually (or at the doctor's office, or using one of those blood pressure machines at the pharmacy), you don't take instant readings the way the watch does, you take readings over a certain period of time (e.g. 20 seconds to one minute).

0 BradVincent over 6 years ago

Resting heart rate is usually considered the lowest your heart rate will go while awake. Typically, this is waking before getting out of bed, but not necessarily. For example, I work out hard in the evening, and if my workout is hard enough, my waking heart rate (and even sleeping heart rate) will be higher than my heart rate right before lunch.

Taking a 1 minute average makes sense, if not to replicate taking your pulse conventionally, it eliminates noise or bad readings - which if there are any, could easily be the lowest of the day. But the 645 seems considerably higher than the lowest 1 minute average. It seems closer to the average of any time I am not moving. I will have to set a timer next time I see my heart rate below my resting heart rate, and see if it stays lower for more than a minute.

0 BradVincent over 6 years ago

I just watched a timer for well over a minute. My heart rate was 57 almost the whole time, briefly hitting 56 and 58, but even after forcing a resync, my resting is listed as 60. I can probably find a bigger gap between the numbers if I try, but this shows it is above the lowest 1 minute average.

0 BradVincent over 6 years ago

I found this on Garmin's website:

"RHR: This value is for the current day. It is calculated one of two ways. For users that wear their device while sleeping, the device will read and record the average of all readings while they sleep, excluding periods where any steps were detected or the measured heart rate falls outside reasonable bounds. A minimum of four hours of sleep time is required to register a reading. For users that do not wear their device overnight, RHR is determined as the lowest average reading over a one minute time period during the day."

So this explains what the watch is doing, and as I said, my waking heart rate is higher than my sleeping if I work out at night. But why Garmin did this is beyond me. The lowest of the 2 metrics (1 minute waking, or 4 hours sleeping) would be a useful value, but different from what the medical community considers "resting heart rate". The watch is basically calculating a "sleeping heart rate" and "resting heart rate", and instead of whichever is lower, it uses sleeping if it is available, even if resting is lower!

I hope they fix this in the future, as resting heart rate is a useful metric.

0 WillNorthYork over 6 years ago

Yeah, I already posted that exact same text in my reply, and I said it was controversial.... I agree with you 100% tho.

I think there's a bunch of threads on the forums where people are complaining about this.

Someone wrote an app that displays your lowest 1 min HR for you, so you can take it take your resting HR any time you want. Unfortunately it's currently only available for fenix 5 and 935, but maybe you can contact the dev and ask him add 645:
https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/apps/9d91352b-32b9-410a-b5b4-52bb60eafdd7

0 BradVincent over 6 years ago

My resting yesterday went down to 51, so I am back to not knowing exactly what the watch is doing.

This is something Garmin needs to fix, we shouldn't need apps to add the most basic functionality of an always on heart rate monitor.

0 WillNorthYork over 6 years ago

Yeah tbh this used to bother me a lot. But then I saw my resting hr go down as I got fitter (just as it did when I used to manually take it) so I sorta live with it now.

You could always contact [email][email protected][/email]

+1 2614302 over 5 years ago

I got the below explanation from DC Rainmaker. I think it might clear this up...

The lowest HR of your day is commonly referred to as your resting heart rate (RHR). Now technically speaking, per most medical definitions of this, it’s actually your lowest heart rate while awake. Typically you’ll see slightly lower heart rates while sleeping. So the term ‘resting’ is somewhat confusing as some may assume rest = sleep. When in reality, rest = lying on the couch watching TV.

For example, if you confer with the American Heart Association, they note that RHR should be measured while sitting or lying:

“Your resting heart rate is the heart pumping the lowest amount of blood you need because you’re not exercising…Resting, sitting or standing, your pulse is usually the same. Sometimes as you stand for the first 15 to 20 seconds, your pulse may go up a little bit, but after a couple of minutes it should settle down.”

0 George over 5 years ago in reply to 2614302

Not sure it really matters. What's important is not the absolute heart rate but the trend, telling you if you're getting fitter. So measuring by preference when asleep is probably because it gives more consistent readings and therefore a more usable trend.

0 Former Member over 5 years ago

RHR comes from your sleep time. If your heart rate elevates during dreaming and you dream a lot - as I do -then don’t be surprised if the watch shows a RHR higher than you see when you wake up in a morning. It doesn’t matter that much. It’s the trend that is your friend.