Say two people are racing, if one has a higher heart beat what does that mean?

All things equivalent and based on similar energy extended, the athletic heart beats less but more efficiently. That’s not to say one’s heart may beat faster in an overtaking sprint though. But if you have two similar persons running at the same speed for the same distance, the one whose heart rate is slower is in better cardiac condition.

He or she is likely to slow down to recover or risk having a heart attack. Lower-heartbeat person, just keep on truckin’

One of them requires more performance to achieve the same task that the other one achieves with less effort.The latter one is more efficient and thus, better and healthier.
Seems like common sense to me.

Adernaline can often make a persons heartrate go up. That could be why.

First one into atrial fibrillation loses.

She is wrong. As a person ages their maximum sustained heart rate under the same amount of load lowers. A more efficient (usually more youthful) heart can supply oxygen at a better rate by beating faster. An older person who is very fit and in training will be able to sustain a higher heart rate than his or her less fit peers, but as a rule the older you are the slower your heart rate under load. If you look at heart rate age charts (such as are supplied with heart rate monitors) they will show what you can expect to reach at various fitness levels. Always the fitter you are the higher the rate.

A heart’s fitness is assessed by its ability to beat fast without damage. It is a pump designed to supply oxygen by pumping blood. Like any pump, the more it can pump in a given time, the more efficient. A fit person will have good muscle development, once again, requiring more oxygen than a less fit person, and a faster heart rate.

If you compare two people who are not performing any kind of aerobic exercise, who are fully relaxed, the one with the lower resting pulse would normally be the fitter person. Maybe that is where she got confused.

@DarkScribe
Yes but of course the maximum sustained heart rate lowers as a person ages because it is dangerous to have a higher sustained heart rate not because the person is by nature healthier. That’s making an erroneous assumption. There is a reason that professional athletes top out in their 30’s generally.
The most accurate measurement of heart rate as an indicator of health is of course the resting heart rate.
Compare an athlete with a RHR of 50 beats to an unfit man, same age, with a RHR of 100 beats: The second man’s heart has to do double job for the same result!
http://searchwarp.com/swa451860-Resting-Minimum-Heart-Rate-A-Reliable-Fitness-Indicator.htm

@SeventhSense of course the maximum sustained heart rate lowers as a person ages because it is dangerous to have a higher sustained heart rate not because the person is by nature healthier.

Not so. I gather that you do not have much experience with fitness training or you would not make such a naive claim. It has nothing to do with danger in a direct sense, it has to do physical response and capability.

@DarkScribe
I work out all the time and of course it does. Why do you think that the 80% of your maximum heart rate is lower because you should act as if you’re 21 and ignore it? Why do you think there’s is a compensation for age at all? Who is at risk more for a rapidly elevated heart rate the youth or the old man? Who is more at risk of a heart attack? It’s just common sense.

@SeventhSense Why do you think that the 80% of your maximum heart rate is lower because you should act as if you’re 21 and ignore it?

I am not quite sure what you are saying here. The issue is that even when fully fit in an aerobic sense, an older person is incapable of reaching the heart rate levels of a younger person. In order to come close they need to be extraordinarily fit. Take five athletes each a decade older than the previous and have them (wearing heart rate monitors) run up a hill at maximum pace. Look at the results. They are all “peaking” and fit enough not to be at risk, but there is a difference in peak rate, not something that is recommended or deliberately adhered to, it is just an effect of age. No matter how fit, as you age your maximum “achievable” heart rate reduces. Look at the research done by Polar – the Heart Rate Monitor people. Look at some of the Olympic sports institutes.

I am fifty-six – I train every day, seven days per week. One aerobic, one anaerobic, and have done for more than thirty years (a break during illness excepted). I have used a heart rate monitor since the 1978 beta test days of the Polar monitor. I have my own records and access to many others. I am not talking about or interested in what happens to unfit people, I am only talking about ideally fit athletes of any age. A person my age – who is fit – can outdo most twenty-one year olds who are not in training. I have done it often in the senior divisions of various athletic events.

@DarkScribe
Well can we agree that the real indicator is resting heart rate and the lower heart rate is the healthier one regardless of age?

@SeventhSense Well can we agree that the real indicator is resting heart rate and the lower heart rate is the healthier one regardless of age?

As I did state that in my initial post -

If you compare two people who are not performing any kind of aerobic exercise, who are fully relaxed, the one with the lower resting pulse would normally be the fitter person. Maybe that is where she got confused.

- yes, I think that we can agree.

@DarkScribe
Ok our work is done. Good luck on your next 5,10, 20K. :)

Well. I ended up helping my friend more than she knew. All she really did was come up with the thesis and have a broad idea of what she wanted to do as the trials of actually testing her thesis. I came up with three specific trials she could use to prove that a more athletic person is in “better” shape than someone who doesn’t work out at all. Logically this thesis seems to right by common sense, but her objective was to prove that this thesis was actually correct. Her three trials ended up comparing mile times, body fat percentages, and heart rate numbers after running bleachers for 5–10 minutes.
I also used some of the info you guys gave to answer her initial questions about the heart rate stuff…Thanks!