Unlike myself, my wife is slim and looks like she keeps herself in shape. When we go running her heart rate is around 20bpm faster than mine even though she is a few years younger than me and well within her BMI. At first I thought it was a faulty HRM belt so she tried using mine with the same results. On some runs she is reaching 179bpm without breaking a sweat although physically tiring in the muscle department. Her resting heartrate if relevant is around 68-70 only slightly faster than mine which is around 66.
The heartrate data recorded doesn’t show any spikes or fluctuations other than were you’d expect them such as going uphill.
Is this something that needs to be checked out or normal for some people?

You’d need to know her max heart rate before figuring out if it’s an issue or not. My wife’s heart-rate also tends to be a lot higher than mine (her resting HR is also about 15 higher than mine, despite her being slimmer and fitter than me).

Everyone is different. It’s the percentage of max that gives you the only meaningful thing to compare.

*Puts physiology PhD hat on*

Without getting into the maths of it – smaller (female) heart needs to pump more fluid (blood) at exercise than a larger (male) heart. Two ways to do this – a)increase pumping rate (HR) b)increase ejection fraction (volume of blood).

If, you were both the same size + muscle mass + trained status + sex – you could do some comparison and be a bit worried – but your not, so don’t.

If you’re really worried – go talk to a cardiologist. Personally, I wouldn’t.

*puts rambling wanna be bike journo hat back on*

Bikes are shiny. WEEEEE!!! *crash*

There is a reason I still work as a scientist.

Using the 220 less age her max heart rate would be 179. She can reach that rate at fast but not all out pace.

Joe Friel says womens’ hearts are smaller so they have to work faster as they pump less blood per beat.

He also recommends not bothering to try to find out max HR as it’s unnecessarily stressful and not that useful.

Cheers Greg, that makes some sense.

Also – ignore the 220 minus your age. It’s waffle.

220 minus age is definitely waffle.
My running max heart rate is around 200 (34 years old).

Ignore me though, I’m off for a check on my heart tomorrow; as I was just refused life insurance due to a low resting pulse (circa 42 bpm)…

If she feels fine then it’s nothing to worry about. The 220 minus age is rubbish. Everyone is v diff, my max HR is 201 & bf’s around 170 I think. If your really interested, threshold HR is much better to know.

Also running generally equals higher hr than biking too.

Agreed on 220 minus age is waffle. I get my heart rate up to 190 at times road riding. At the age of 59 I try not to, but I keep pushing myself to the limit.
What reflects on how fit you are is the time it takes your heart rate to get back to normal.