After sitting down at a blood pressure machine in a grocery store, you might wonder whether your heart rate is in the normal range. Although factors such as age, fitness level, and even air temperature can change a reading, a generally acceptable heart rate range is somewhere between 60 to 100 beats per minute. Athletes and young adults may have lower resting heart rates due to increased heart heath. The intricacies of measuring the body's functions with machines such as pulse oximeters mean that the results gained from devices can vary wildly depending on the circumstances when a reading was taken.