My resting heart rate is high — should I train today?

The coach answer · Updated July 10, 2026

It depends on how high and for how long. Within 2–3 bpm of your normal: train as planned and just watch it. Elevated 3–5 bpm, or for a second day: keep the session but strip the intensity. Elevated 5–7+ bpm for several days — or high plus feeling run-down — rest; that pattern often means accumulating fatigue or an oncoming illness, and one rest day is cheap insurance.

Why morning resting heart rate is worth reading

Resting heart rate is cruder than HRV but easy to understand and hard to fake. Accumulated fatigue nudges your sympathetic nervous system up, and resting heart rate rises with it. A morning reading several beats above your normal is a simple, legible flag — provided you measure the same way every day (before getting out of bed, before coffee) and compare to your own baseline, not a population number.

A caveat in the name of honesty: RHR is a useful but imperfect marker. Some studies link overreaching to elevated RHR clearly; a few older ones found no reliable correlation. That is exactly why you read it alongside HRV and sleep rather than alone.

The context that changes the call

A hard race or big session yesterday explains an elevated reading today — that is expected fatigue, not a warning. Heat, dehydration, alcohol, and a late meal all push RHR up for a day. The signal that deserves action is drift: a reading that stays up, or keeps climbing, across three or more mornings with no obvious cause.

Source: The ECSS/ACSM consensus (Meeusen et al., 2013) lists persistently elevated resting heart rate among the practical markers of overreaching — while noting single markers are unreliable, which is why clusters decide.

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Educational content, not medical advice. If something hurts (rather than aches), or symptoms persist, see a professional.