Reference charts
Resting Heart Rate Chart by Age and Sex
The American Heart Association calls 60 to 100 beats per minute a normal resting heart rate for adults who are sitting or lying down, calm and well. That range is wide, so the percentiles below show where people actually fall. They come from NHANES 1999–2008: seated pulse measured after about four minutes of rest in people without a condition or medicine that changes pulse.
Updated . Educational reference, not medical advice.
Interactive resting heart rate percentile chart
Pick sex and age, enter a value, and see where it falls in the reference population. Seated 60-second pulse taken at an exam visit. Overnight or wearable resting heart rate usually reads lower.
65 BPM is about the 38th percentile for men aged 20–39: higher than roughly 38% of that group.
| Age | 5th | 10th | 25th | 50th | 75th | 90th | 95th |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16–19 | 52 | 56 | 61 | 69 | 78 | 87 | 92 |
| 20–39 | 52 | 55 | 61 | 69 | 76 | 84 | 89 |
| 40–59 | 52 | 55 | 61 | 68 | 77 | 85 | 90 |
| 60–79 | 50 | 54 | 60 | 67 | 75 | 84 | 91 |
| 80+ | 51 | 54 | 61 | 68 | 78 | 86 | 94 |
Source: Ostchega et al., National Health Statistics Reports No. 41, NCHS 2011 (NHANES 1999–2008, seated pulse after about 4 minutes of rest, people without conditions or medicines affecting pulse). Educational reference only, not medical advice.
How to read this chart
The line is the median for each age group and the bands show the middle half (25th to 75th percentile) and the 5th to 95th percentile. Adult medians barely move with age: 67 to 69 BPM in men and 70 to 74 BPM in women. Women's resting pulse is a few beats higher at every adult age.
A percentile here describes how common a value is, not whether it is healthy. In men the 5th to 95th percentile ran from about 50 to 94 BPM, and in women from about 56 to 95 BPM. The AHA notes that a pulse below 60 is common in athletes and in people taking beta blockers, and that a pulse above 100 may be temporary.
These are single seated readings taken at an exam visit. A wearable reports resting heart rate differently, usually from the lowest stretches of the day or night, so watch values tend to run below these numbers; overnight figures from large ring datasets are on the sleeping heart rate by age and gender chart. In a study of 92,457 Fitbit users, the mean daily resting heart rate was 65 BPM, with individual averages ranging from 40 to 109.
What changes resting heart rate
The AHA lists temperature, emotions and pain, body size, standing up and medicines such as beta blockers and calcium channel blockers. In the Fitbit cohort, resting heart rate differed by age, sex, BMI and average sleep duration, was lowest in July and highest in January, and 20% of people had at least one week when it shifted by 10 BPM or more.
Regular exercise lowers it. A meta-analysis of 191 trials found exercise groups dropped about 3.3 BPM more than controls on average, with endurance training and yoga showing reductions in both sexes. Our guide on how to lower resting heart rate goes through the evidence.
When the AHA says to call a professional
The AHA advises telling a healthcare professional if your heart rate has been slower or faster than usual, especially with weakness, dizziness or feeling faint, and calling 911 if it is suddenly very high or very low for you together with chest pain, shortness of breath or fainting. This chart cannot diagnose anything.
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CC BY 4.0ChatPPG compiled this data. You can copy, adapt and republish it, including in articles, slides, papers and AI tools, as long as you credit ChatPPG and link to this page. Please also cite the original studies for any number you use.
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Source: ChatPPG, Resting Heart Rate Chart by Age and Sex, https://chatppg.com/charts/resting-heart-rate-chart (CC BY 4.0)
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Source: <a href="https://chatppg.com/charts/resting-heart-rate-chart">ChatPPG, Resting Heart Rate Chart by Age and Sex</a> (<a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" rel="license">CC BY 4.0</a>)Related guides
Frequently asked questions
What is a normal resting heart rate by age?
For adults the AHA range is 60 to 100 BPM. In NHANES the median seated pulse was 69 BPM for men aged 20 to 39 and 67 for men aged 60 to 79; for women it was 74 and 70. Children run higher: the median was 85 BPM at ages 6 to 8 and 76 at ages 12 to 15.
What is a good resting heart rate for a man?
Ninety percent of men aged 20 to 79 in NHANES had a seated resting pulse between about 50 and 91 BPM (5th to 95th percentile), with a median of 67 to 69. Lower values are common in endurance athletes. A reading on its own does not tell you whether it is good for you.
What is a normal resting heart rate for women?
In NHANES the median seated resting pulse for women was 74 BPM at ages 20 to 39 and 70 to 71 BPM from 40 onward, a few beats above men of the same age. The 5th to 95th percentile ran from about 56 to 95 BPM.
Why is my watch resting heart rate lower than this chart?
Watches usually compute resting heart rate from the calmest periods of the day or from sleep, while NHANES took one seated reading after about four minutes of rest at a clinic visit. The methods differ, so a watch value will often sit lower than these percentiles.
References
- Ostchega Y, Porter KS, Hughes J, Dillon CF, Nwankwo T. Resting pulse rate reference data for children, adolescents, and adults: United States, 1999–2008. National Health Statistics Reports No. 41. NCHS; 2011. www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhsr/nhsr041.pdf
- American Heart Association. All about heart rate (pulse). Last reviewed May 13, 2024. www.heart.org/en/health-topics/high-blood-pressure/the-facts-about-high-blood-pressure/all-about-heart-rate-pulse
- Quer G, Gouda P, Galarnyk M, Topol EJ, Steinhubl SR. Inter- and intraindividual variability in daily resting heart rate. PLoS One. 2020;15(2):e0227709. doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0227709
- Reimers AK, Knapp G, Reimers CD. Effects of exercise on the resting heart rate: a systematic review and meta-analysis of interventional studies. J Clin Med. 2018;7(12):503. doi.org/10.3390/jcm7120503