Heartbeats

A good indication of your fitness level is your resting heart rate. You should get in the habit of checking your heart rate first thing upon waking up in the morning before you even leave your bed. As you gain fitness, your heart rate should start to go down. Find your age and heart rate in the chart below and see where you fit. If you work out real hard for a few days in a row and find your resting heart rate more than three or four beats higher than usual, you might be over training and need to cut back a little. If you're training for a specific event - a road run or a fight - this is a real easy way to monitor your training. Don't expect your heart rate to drop substantially after only a couple of weeks of training. It takes a lot of work to get it from 72 to down into the fifties. Some world class runners and cyclists have numbers in the low forties and even into the thirties. Their heart becomes so efficient, it doesn't have to pump very often to get their body the oxygen it needs while at rest. Most of those athletes carry a medical alert card advising emergency personnel that a low heart rate is a normal condition.

It's important to establish a baseline by checking your resting heart rate for several days in a row. If it's exceptionally high or low, the first thing you want to do is get it checked out by a medical professional. Of course, you should always get checked out before starting any exercise regimen. I'm not sure what the numbers should be for those younger than eighteen but if you can spar three good solid rounds without huffing and puffing, your definitely doing something right, anyway. I would suggest you young ones work hard in the gym but concentrate on having fun with your boxing. As you age, you can work harder to win those titles.

Men
Age	18-25	26-35	36-45	46-55	56-65	65+
Athlete	49-55	49-54	50-56	50-57	51-56	50-55
Excellent	56-61	55-61	57-62	58-63	57-61	56-61
Good	62-65	62-65	63-66	64-67	62-67	62-65
Above Average	66-69	66-70	67-70	68-71	68-71	66-69
Average	70-73	71-74	71-75	72-76	72-75	70-73
Below Average	74-81	75-81	76-82	77-83	76-81	74-79
Poor	82+	82+	83+	84+	82+	80+

MENBbeAGE18 -2526 -3536 -4546 - 5556 -6565+ATHLETE49-5549-5450-5650-5751-5650-55EXCEL'T56-6155-6157-6258-6357-6156-61GOOD62-6562-6563-6664-6762-6762-65ABOVE AV66-6966-7067-7068-7168-7166-69AVERAGE70-7371-7471-7572-7672-7570-73BELOW AV74-8175-8176-8277-8376-8174-79POOR82+82+83+84+82+80+