Heart rate recovery: how fast your pulse falls after exercise, and how to measure it

What is heart rate recovery?

Heart rate recovery is the drop in your pulse after hard effort ends. In the widely cited 1999 study by Cole and colleagues, it was defined as the decrease in heart rate from peak exercise to one minute after stopping.¹

The authors tie that early fall to the vagus nerve, part of the parasympathetic nervous system. They write that recovery of the heart rate immediately after exercise is a function of vagal reactivation.¹ In plain terms, the part of the nervous system that slows the heart takes over again once you stop.

Two cautions before any numbers. First, the figure depends on where you start. A pulse that peaked at 165 has further to fall than one that peaked at 130, and the studies read for this guide measured from peak effort, not from a casual walk. Second, the studies used different stopping points and tests, so a number from one cannot be laid over another.

This guide is about the measure itself. If you want to know what your pulse should be at rest, read the resting heart rate guide. For effort levels during exercise, see heart rate zones.

How to measure it: a one-minute method, step by step

No British health body read for this guide publishes a home protocol for heart rate recovery, so the steps below are a simple routine built from the definition above.¹ They are a way of keeping your own readings comparable, not a clinical test.

1. Pick one repeatable effort. Use the same route, machine or effort each time, so that changes in the number mean something. The UK Chief Medical Officers describe intensity as relative to the person, and say being able to talk but not sing indicates moderate intensity.⁹
2. Note the peak. Write down the highest pulse at the end of the hard part.
3. Stop and keep still. Stop, then stand or sit still. Do not walk it off for this test, because the definition measures the fall after stopping.¹
4. Read the pulse at one minute. Write down the pulse exactly one minute after stopping.
5. Subtract. Peak minus the one-minute pulse is your recovery in beats a minute.

A worked example

Suppose your peak is 165 and the pulse at one minute is 140. The recovery is 165 − 140 = 25 beats a minute. The numbers are invented to show the arithmetic. No source read for this guide sorts 25 into “good” or “poor”.

What counts as a good drop? What the studies say

There is no single, agreed cut-off in the sources read for this guide, and no table of norms by age was found. What exists are study thresholds, each tied to a specific test and group of people.

Reading the first study with care

Cole’s group followed adults sent for a diagnostic exercise test for 6 years.¹ That is not a sample of healthy people at large. Of 2,428 patients, 639 had an abnormal recovery, and 639 ÷ 2,428 × 100 = 26.3%, which matches the 26% the authors report.¹

After adjusting for age, sex, medicines, risk factors, resting pulse and the workload reached, a low recovery was still linked with death, at an adjusted relative risk of 2.0.¹ “Linked” is the operative word: this is an observational study.

The pooled analysis

Qiu and colleagues pooled nine prospective cohorts. Reduced recovery carried a hazard ratio of 1.68 for death from any cause (95% CI 1.51 to 1.88), compared with rapid recovery.² For cardiovascular events the hazard ratio was 1.69, with a wide interval of 1.05 to 2.71, based on five studies.² Per 10 beats a minute less recovery, the hazard ratios were 1.13 for cardiovascular events and 1.09 for death from any cause.²

The authors say reduced recovery is associated with increased risk.² They do not say it causes it, and neither does this guide.

What can slow recovery, and what one number cannot tell you

Several things in the studies went with a lower recovery, and none of them settles what a single reading means for you.

• Time spent sitting. In the Chinese study, sitting for 6 hours a day or more went with higher odds of an abnormal recovery (odds ratio 1.473, 95% CI 1.172 to 1.852).³
• Body composition. Among 64 healthy men aged 25 to 55, body mass index and body fat percentage were negatively correlated with recovery at 2 minutes (r = −0.833 and −0.877).⁷ That means higher values went with lower recovery in that group.
• Which test you use. The 12 beats a minute cut-off applies to a fall in one minute, and the 42 beats a minute cut-off applies to a fall at 2 minutes on a treadmill.¹³
• Starting point. Both of those studies measured from peak exercise, so a casual stroll gives no comparable figure.¹³

Notice what is missing. Nothing read for this guide says that a low number, taken once at home, means a heart problem. The studies describe groups of people, not an individual on a given day.

If you want to see how body composition is measured, the guide to body fat percentage covers that side. That guide is separate from this one.

Heart rate recovery versus resting heart rate and HRV

These three get mixed up, so a quick way to tell them apart. Resting heart rate is your pulse when you are still. Heart rate recovery is how fast the pulse falls after effort. Heart rate variability (HRV) is about the small differences in timing between beats.

The only link read for this guide is the one Cole’s group draws: recovery immediately after exercise reflects vagal reactivation.¹ No source read compares recovery directly with HRV, so this guide does not say that one predicts the other.

For each measure on its own, see how to measure your resting heart rate and the HRV guide. For fitness more broadly, VO2 max is a separate measure again.

How accurate is a wrist sensor straight after exercise?

This is where care is needed, because the two studies below both found sizeable errors in wrist readings.

A French study compared a wrist optical monitor, the Polar Unite, with a 10-lead ECG in 30 participants.⁵ The coefficients of variation for the 60 second change were above 20% on the treadmill, and 11.7% on the bicycle ergometer.⁵

The same study also found a time lag. In 97% of cases, the fall in pulse after exercise showed up later on the wrist sensor than on the ECG.⁵ Correcting for that delay brought the coefficients of variation under 10% on the bicycle.⁵

A separate study of the Fitbit Charge HR in 10 volunteers, living normally and compared with a Polar H6 chest strap, found the wrist tracker under-read the pulse by 6.0 beats a minute on average. In the moderate to vigorous heart rate zone, the under-read grew to 16.2 beats a minute.⁶ In the low intensity zone the under-read was smaller, 4.22 beats a minute, so the error grew by 16.2 − 4.22 = 11.98 beats a minute in the moderate to vigorous zone.⁶

The sensible reading: a wrist figure for recovery is a rough trend aid, and a one-minute change taken from it can be off by a lot. Both studies used a different reference (an ECG, or a chest strap) to judge the wrist sensor.

For how fitness trackers compare more generally, see the best fitness trackers guide.

How to improve your recovery safely

The evidence here is thinner than the headlines suggest, so this section sticks to what the sources read for this guide support.

• Move regularly. The NHS recommends at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity activity a week for adults aged 19 to 64, or 75 minutes of vigorous activity.⁸
• Sit less where you can. In the Chinese study, 300 minutes or more of moderate to vigorous activity a week went with a lower chance of abnormal recovery, even among people who sat a lot (odds ratio 0.553). It was a cross-sectional study, not a trial.³
• Know what training has been tested. A review of 8 studies in 449 patients found aerobic training increased recovery in people with established heart disease. It did not test healthy people.⁴
• Check with your GP first if you need to. The NHS says to speak to your GP first if you have not exercised for some time or have a medical condition.⁸
• Build up gradually and use the talk test. Being able to talk but not sing indicates moderate intensity.⁹

No source read for this guide shows how much an individual can raise their recovery, or how quickly, so it makes no promise on that.

For a wider view of how your body recovers overnight, see the guide to improving sleep quality, and for how nightly data is scored, the sleep score guide, sleep debt and the readiness score explained.

Frequently asked questions