I usually do a hard workout the morning of my blood donation. Partly because I know I will have to have a few days easy afterwards, and partly because my RHR will be high enough to not raise eyebrows.
The Garmin algorithm takes an average over your nights sleep, so will not be showing your actual minimum. you could be at 55 for 2-3 hours but have a period of restlessness as well.
Nothing to worry about if you feel fine and your heart rate does increase when exercising.
My garmin watch calculates my resting heart rate when Iām awake around 45 - it can drop to as low as 34 when iām asleep (with slightly worrying periods when it stops recording anything at all - hopefully just watch position!)
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My heart rate was 60-70 roughly 5 years ago when I was dealing with numerous health issues. Health issues fixed and able to be active again. Since then I have been cycling regularly. My heart rate is now typically 45-50. I am 58 years old.
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Nothing to worry about.
As others have mentioned cardiac output is equal to HR x stroke volume (volume of blood per stroke). Since you have higher SV, you need lower HR to deliver the same cardiac output.
I will add that not only is your SV higher, but you have more plasma volume and higher hemoglobin than the general population. This allows more oxygen bound to red blood cells and more CO2 to be dissolved in your blood to the lungs. Since these are the primary stimuli to the part of the brain that controls your HR. Furthermore, your muscles are much better at extracting that oxygen, your vessels are better at auto regulating, you have more capillary beds, your endocrine system works better, etc. Point being, your whole body changes to maximize oxygen carrying and CO2 dissipation. Thatās why your HR is low at rest when nothing is needed.
I had a similar experience with my doctor. He was alarmed that my HR was low and my HgB was 17. He did EKG in the office and it showed an enlarged left ventricle. I was chuckling and just went with it. And my wife complained that I snore. So he was convinced that I had COPD with obstructive apnea and impending heart failure. Ended up doing sleep study and a stress echo and all was good.
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Seems on point.
(quote)
There is one nice thing about being a hospitalised cyclist: youāre made to feel like the most perfect physical specimen.
āOhhh ā youāve got a lovely back,ā said the anaesthetist as she stuck a spinal injection into it.
āGreat veins,ā said a doctor who inserted two cannulas. āBest Iāve ever seen.ā She celebrated by sticking needles the size of drinking straws into me.
Best of all, an alarm went off one night, waking up the whole ward. A nurse arrived. āYour pulse is only 39!ā she said, paging someone urgently.
āItās normally 39,ā I said. āIf I wasnāt so stressed I imagine it would be lower.ā
āWeāre going to have to do something about it,ā she said.
I wiggled my toes beneath the sheets for a few minutes to get it up to the mid 40s. She seemed quite happy with that. I drifted back to sleep happy. Thinking that youāre fit is one thing, having an NHS machine wake a ward full of strangers to tell them about it is quite another.
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My resting HR is around 42, and in the last year Iāve caused panic during a routine health check ECG - the nurse actually came out to check on me afterwards in the waiting room, presumably to check I wasnāt about to keel over.
I think I also set off an alarm while drowsy just before having a check-up colonoscopy. I was a bit sleepy at the time, but remember trying to explain to the nurse why it was so low!
Itās reassuring to know Iām not the only one!
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When I was younger, my RHR was in the 30ās Now its in the mid 40ās.( Iām in my mid 60ās). Still gets above 170 for extreme efforts. Just an effect of endurance training.
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I recommend this heart rate monitor app to check your blood pressure heart beat checker i personally impressed by this.
Iām also in the āgive the doctor something to panic aboutā club.
The really simple explanation is that being fit, you have more blood and your heart pumps more blood with each beat.
Anesthetist doing pre-op check on me;
Doc: āYour pulse is very low!ā panicked look on face
Me: āI know, and this is my blood pressureā¦ā
Doc checking BP āUh, yes it isā
And then in operating theatre - oh look, nice veins - plunges needle inā¦
Maybe 7 years ago I had some serious health scares where a seizure landed me in a 4-5 day coma. I was swimming competitively at the time and my HR would get down to 33 bpm and they had to lower the alarm threshold because it would keep going off. It was also a teaching hospital, so when I woke up and had groups of residents coming into the room they would always make comments about the low heart rate. I would have to explain each time that I had spent the last 2 years swimming 9 times a week.
I had wisdom teeth taken out under general anaesthetic taken out a few years ago. The oral surgeon was a fit triathlete and weād talked about running and cycling in the consultation. They had to give me something to speed up my lying down heart rate (42ish) before they could administer the anaestheticā¦ Advice from the aneasthetist before I drifted off? āIf youād kindly start drinking five pints a day and smoking twenty Benson and Hedges like rest of our patientsā¦ā 
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Mine used to be in the 60s, since i started cycling itās in the 50s.
I know iām sick or havenāt recovered well when it creeps up to the high 50s or even 60s.
Iām imagining that itāll keep decreasing as i get fitter.
You want to really freak the doctors and nurses out - go into the hospital with a collapsed lung and continuously set off the HR alarm for dropping into the low 30ās and the respiration rate alarm for dropping into single digits
Does give a nice ego boost to maintain oxygen levels at 100 with only 1.5 lungs though
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My wife doesnāt work out much, doesnāt do cardio very often, has a resting HR of 46. I on the other hand am in the best shape of my life and mine is 58-60. Everyone is different, as long as you donāt have bad symptoms I wouldnāt worry about it 
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36 years old, been exercising regularly now since 2017 and I have a resting HR of 46-50 and max at 198bpm. Iām not worried or concerned. I do take blood pressure tests every other week or so and there Iām at 100/62 dia/sys so not worried there either. Generally not worried I must say. 
My heart rate fluctuates depending on excercises. Itās usually the lowest when I wake up. Not sure what it is at sleep, perhaps a little bit lower.
This was just a short time ago while eating lunch.
Waking up heart rate.
When I donāt excercise, esp. cardio, heart rate is in the mid to upper 60ās. Heart is a muscle, it becomes more efficient with exercise. Unless you have some type of heart condition/defect, I would not worry about it.
The experience from doing my own health care exploration this year is that medical professions are trained in dealing with non-healthy people, that range is their norm. Thus, when presented with an actual healthy and/or fit specimen, they most usually over-react simply because you are well outside the non-healthy bell curve.
IMO the current medical system is predicated on keeping people from dying, which is a completely different system than keeping people healthy.
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Heartrate is a goofy thing. My HR is always naturally high, and Iām in better shape than the average shmo. My brother @gb78 is the same way. Genetics, my friend; however, that seems awfully low
Low RHR sounds unique. Two sounds for average heart rates sounds like ābom-bomā, a trained heart is more like āBoom . . bom-bomā.
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