What is a resting heart rate (pulse)?
Your resting heart rate is the number of heart beats per minute when you are at rest. Each time the heart beats, blood is ejected into your arteries. As the blood surges into the arteries during a heart beat, each artery stretches and bulges. This brief bulge of the artery is called a beat. Thus, your pulse is the rate at which your heart beats, and you can measure your heart rate by feeling your pulse. Your heart is working hard!!! • The heart of a normal individual beats about 40 million times a year. • During this time, over 10 tons of blood are circulating each day, and every night: thus, the workload of the heart is equivalent to a person carrying a thirty-pound pack to the top of the 102-stairs of the Empire State Building.
