A great little routine to start in the new year is to take your morning resting heart rate.  Yes, it can be a bit annoying to reach out from under those warm blankets and put the cold plastic monitor to your chest, but the benefits to knowing what that number should be are worth it. A cozier option is to have your partner snuggle up to your chest and count the beats for you!

The end of your off-season or after a rest week, while healthy (no colds or injuries kicking around) is the best time to establish some starting numbers. From there, you can monitor any irregularities and hopefully avoid the pitfalls of over-training or fighting through a training session when your body is trying to fight off a cold.


Typically, an increase of 10% or more from your base value would be a sign that something is not right.  For example, if you regularly see a morning heart rate of 45, but you wake up one day with a HR of 50 or more you’ll want to be careful about how you approach your upcoming training day.  If you know it’s not stemming from poor recovery from the previous training day or a horrible nights sleep, then perhaps you’ll want to watch for signs of sickness.  Quite often when your body is trying to recover from hard training sessions you’ll open yourself up to a depressed immune system – your resting heart can be the first indicator something is not right.

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