In case you were worried, science paper says fit people’s hearts beat fewer times a day despite high HR during exercise due to lower resting heart rates leading to lower average daily HR.
What if your RHR and exercise HRs are both high?
Male, 42 y/o, 3.6w/kg, 67 bpm resting, 203 bpm max
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Let’s say you work at 203 bpm for an hour then rest for the remaining 23 hours
Total heart beats
6.278,400
Now you don’t exercise and resting HR is 77 bpm
Total heart beats
6.652,800
Now clearly you’re not going to sustain your max for an hour, but you get the idea.
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Yawn…….
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Doctor, I’ve heard that cardiovascular exercise can prolong life. Is this true?
A Heart is only good for so many beats, and thats it… Don’t waste it on exercise. Everything wears out eventually. Speeding up the heart will not make you live longer. It’s like saying you extend life of a car by driving faster. Want to live longer? Take nap.
Just kidding obviously 
Using up your heartbeats is like using up your calf muscles. There’s only so many steps you can take until you freeze solid and can’t move anymore.
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Yeah, obviously wrong, but the point of the article is that exercise reduces the number of heartbeats used because it lowers the resting heart rate which more than makes up for the increased rate during exercise. So, a fit person uses fewer heartbeats per day than they would if they didn’t exercise and were unfit.
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A low resting HR doesn’t mean you are necessarily aerobically fit. There are many extremely fit individuals with resting HRs in the 50s and 60s. It depends on genetic disposition.
The article is not about comparing different individuals, but rather what happens to one individual. When they’re fit, their lower resting heart rate due to that more than compensates for the high HR during workouts. Different individuals will be higher or lower, but each will have a lower overall HR for them if they’re working out and fit.
My pediatrician who was a smoker and appeared ancient in the early 80s used to make that comment to counter my dad’s running.
My heart scared anesthesia when I was getting a plate and some screws to repair my hand after a mountain bike crash. Apparently athletes heart looks weird.
Rate of living theory was debunked a long time ago.
Most people in their 80s are now looking not so ancient.
Should have said he looked ancient in the early 1980s.
How’s he look now?
I think he’s been dead since early 2000s.
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Depending on the burial method he might look the same today