Examples Of Aerobic Workouts
Moderate aerobic workouts do not have to include jogging or walking mile after mile on hard pavement, or swimming laps in a pool. Varying types of exercise will help you work different muscle groups, avoid letting your body get used to the strain, and let you find workouts that you personally enjoy.
Moderate Aerobic Workouts
- Stair climbing and elliptical machine
- Spin class and other stationary bike routines
- Circuit training
- Chores such as sweeping, vacuuming and mopping can also provide moderate aerobic exercise
Vigorous Aerobic Workouts
Vigorous aerobic activity occurs when your breath is coming hard and fast and its difficult to talk or maintain a conversation with your exercise partner. These workouts consume more oxygen to complete the activity. Examples include:
- Cycling more than 10 mph or uphill
- Heavy gardening
- Tennis and other court sports such as handball, squash and racquetball
- Team sports with lots of running or movement like basketball, soccer and hockey
What Should My Heart Rate Be During Cardio Exercise
Your heart rate has to be 80 percent of your age adjusted max. Your age adjusted max is 220 minus your age for men, 208 minus 82 percent of your age for women. The easy way is 220 minus your age, take away 20 percent. To be in the optimal cardio range, your heart rate has to be at 80 percent of your age adjusted cardio max. Even better if it is at 100 percent. You are really buff if you get it to 110 percent. Dont try that at home unless your first name is Mehmet.
Start by subtracting your age from 220. This is a theoretical heart rate that is considered your maximum. If you are new to increasing your activity, build toward working out at 60 percent of this number. For example if you are 40, your theoretical maximum heart rate is 180 and 60 percent of that is 108 beats per minute. Warm up for 5 minutes then increase intensity until you reach 60 percent of your heart rate max. Maintain it only for as long as you are comfortable, even if only for a few minutes. Work toward maintaining it for 30 minutes. Attempt this for 2 to 3 days per week. Remember though, that the formula is a rough estimate and a good place to start, and is not the definitive measure of intensity.
- 220 age = MHR
- MHR x training intensity = suggested heart rate
- Ex: 220 25 = 195
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How To Use Target Heart Rate Zones In A Training Plan
A typical training plan utilizes multiple training zones. You wont train in each zone for an equal amount of time, though. The time you spend in each zone will vary, usually with more time spent in lower heart rate zones. Heres one example of how a training plan might allocate your time spent in each heart rate zone:
Zone 1: 30%-40% of your time
Zone 2: 40%-50% of your time
Zone 3: 10%-15% of your time
Zone 4: 5%-10% of your time
Zone 5: 5% of your time
A typical training plan will designate precisely how much time you spend in each training zone. As mentioned before, not all training plans use the same exact zones. If you were preparing for a 5K or 10K trail running race and wanted to follow this training plan, for example, youd need to set up your device with heart rate zones that are in that training plan.
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Myth: Cardio Is The Same Thing As Aerobic Exercise
Aerobic exercise is one form of cardio but its not the only one.
Think of your body as a hybrid vehicle with two engines: one is aerobic, meaning it requires oxygen to run, while the other is anaerobic meaning it does not need oxygen.
Both engines are always active, but depending on the duration and intensity of your workout, one will work harder than the other.
The aerobic system is best for long and relatively easy activities the stuff you spend most of your day doing: working at a desk, eating, walking and for lower-intensity forms of exercise, like jogging.
You can emphasize the aerobic system with continuous low-intensity activity lasting 20 minutes or more.
The anaerobic engine is for fast and intense activities, like squatting a barbell or sprinting all-out for 30 seconds.
Its also emphasized during repeated bursts of intense activity, such as cardio workouts involving high-intensity interval training .
Mountains of research in the last two decades show that both aerobic and anaerobic workouts can improve cardiovascular functioning and so both approaches qualify as cardio exercise.
What Is Target Heart Rate
Your target heart rate is a range of numbers that reflect how fast your heart should be beating when you exercise. A higher heart rate is a good thing that leads to greater fitness, says Johns Hopkins cardiologist Michael Blaha, M.D., M.P.H. During exercise, you can monitor heart rate and try to reach this target zone. Doctors also use target heart rate to interpret the results of a cardiac stress test.
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What You Can Do For Your Heart Rate
You should always aim to take good care of your heart. This includes exercising regularly, eating heart-healthy foods, minimizing alcohol, and maintaining a moderate weight.
Additionally, you should visit your doctor regularly for physicals. Not only is it good practice, but it can also help with the early detection of high cholesterol or blood pressure abnormalities.
If you already have heart disease, you should carefully monitor your condition and stick to your treatment plan. Take all medications as instructed by your doctor. Be sure to promptly report any new or worsening symptoms.
Other heart health tips include:
- Find ways to reduce stress. Examples include things like yoga or meditation.
- Limit your caffeine intake when possible. Using too much caffeine can increase heart rate.
- Limit intake of energy drinks.
- Moderate your intake of alcohol. Women should only have one drink or less per day while men should have two or fewer drinks per day.
- Quit smoking. Smoking increases your heart rate, and quitting can help bring it back down.
- Avoid cannabis. Cannabis use
Is Exercising At Maximal Heart Rates Unsafe
In short, the answer is no. For most adults, the risk of not doing enough exercise is far greater than that of doing excessive endurance exercise.
The health benefits of regular exercise are well established, although emerging evidence suggests excessive exercise may not provide extra cardiovascular health benefits.
Likewise, theres a higher chance a sedentary person will experience an acute cardiac event, like a heart attack, during exercise when theyre unaccustomed to high-intensity exercise, or they have a pre-existing heart condition. The maximal risk is 0.3 to 2.7 events per 10,000 person-hours.
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With a third of Australians not meeting the WHO recommended guidelines of accumulating 150 minutes of exercise per week, encouraging regular physical activity continues to be a pervasive public health message.
In terms of assessing risk, an exercise pre-screening assessment with an ESSA-qualified exercise specialist will be able to assess and mitigate the risk of exercise participation.
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Heart Rate Monitors Are A Smart Choice
If you spend any time at the health club youll see lots of people working out. Some look like theyre ready to take on the world. Others look like theyre counting the minutes until they can leave. A lot of times, people dont get anything from their workouts simply because they have no measuring stick. A heart rate monitor can provide that measuring stick. And if youre thinking you might look a bit silly wearing one keep in mind that theyve become pretty much standard gear for everyone from corporate execs to presidents . If its good enough for them, its probably good enough for you.
Heart Rate Monitors Eliminate Stop And Go Workouts
We touched on this a moment ago, but it warrants some more discussion. In the not too distant past, if you wanted to know your heart rate while you were exercising you had to stop and check your pulse. In theory, this would give you the information you needed. In theory. In fact, as soon as you stopped exercising, your heart began to slow down. Not a lot. But enough to affect the reading. On top of that, stopping and starting during an exercise routine is not a good idea. In fact, it can be downright counterproductive . Also, its not always easy to talk oneself into starting back up again.
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Target Heart Rate For Exercise
Your target heart rate is 50 to 85 percent of your maximum heart rate. It is the level at which your heart is beating with moderate to high intensity. To determine your maximum heart rate, take 220 and subtract your age.
Sustaining a workout at this pace improves cardiorespiratory endurance. So knowing your target heart rate helps you pace your workouts. Exercising at the right level of intensity will help you avoid burning out or wasting time with a workout thats not vigorous enough to help you meet your goals.
How Long Should You Stay In The High Heart Rate Zone
According to Tate, when youre at your peak performance, youre in the heart rate zone. Throughout a 45 minute to one-hour workout, she says you should spend 10 to 20 solid minutes at high-intensity levels to see results. You burn more calories per minute than with the lower heart rate workouts, as you are covering more distance per minute, she shares.
However, there are two times when this is difficult: when youre first starting out and when youre an advanced athlete. Newbies may struggle to push themselves to an uncomfortable level, while experienced fitness enthusiasts will have to exert much more energy to reach those sky-high BPMs. Lindsay Ogden, personal trainer and small group program manager for Life Time health clubs, recommends beginning with shorter high-intensity intervals and longer low-intensity intervals so you can get through the workout.
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Learn How To Take Advantage Of Your Aerobic Heart Rate Zone During Workouts
When you work out, how do you tell if youre getting the most out of a workout? Are you pushing too hard or not hard enough? Targeting your aerobic heart rate zone and exercising at the right intensity can help you maximize the effectiveness of your aerobic workouts and better meet your fitness goals.
Myth: Cardio Is Any Exercise That Increases The Heart Rate
Not quite. Just about any physical activity you do can increase your heart rate, from lifting weights to strolling between your desk and the bathroom to rolling out of bed in the morning.
For an activity to qualify as a cardio workout, it has to meet both criteria mentioned above.
In short, it has to raise your heart and breathing rates and challenge your cardiovascular system, just like a biceps exercise has to challenge your biceps and an abdominal exercise has to challenge your abs.
While leisurely activities like walking and easy bike riding have benefits of their own and are cardiovascular in nature, they arent cardio exercises .
Thats because they dont challenge the heart and lungs enough to improve their function.
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Aerobic Heart Rate Zones By Age Chart
Aerobic heart rate is based on max heart rate for your age, gender and conditioning. A commonly used max heart rate formula is subtracting your age from 220. By this method, the max HR for a 40-year-old is 180 beats per minute . However, this equation does not consider your specific variables, such as gender, genetics, conditioning, etc.
Individual max heart rate and the aerobic heart rate zone decline as we age.
Other formulas that include more detail include the Tanaka formula and the Gulati formula but these formulas also make broad generalizations and dont allow for the variables listed above.
You can use a heart rate zone calculator or charts like the one here to find your results based on your personal characteristics. Other factors that can affect heart rate include:
Does The Average Person Need To Track Their Heart Rate
If you have heart disease, its important to learn target heart rates and monitor them as you exercise. For everyone else, the talk test works just fine, says Travers. Can you talk and carry on a conversation when youre exercising? Then youre in a heart-healthy, moderately easy zone. Dont stress about the numbers.
What matters most is that you make an effort to move more. Any exercise, for any length of time, will improve fitness. If tracking your heart rate makes you happy, then go for it. But if heart rate calculations become a stumbling block, forget about it. Your journey to becoming stronger and healthier is too important to let anything get in the way.
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What The Experts Do
Monitor Heart Rate for Motivation
For Johns Hopkins cardiologist Michael Blaha, M.D., M.P.H., most workoutstake place on an elliptical trainer in his home. His machine has electrodeson which he can place his hands to automatically see his heart rate. Itgives me a sense of how hard Im working, he says.
Blaha also uses his targeted heart rate to guide the course that heprogrammed into the machine, so that he works up to where he wants to be interms of exertion. Knowing your target heart rate and trying to achieve itcan be very motivating, he says.
Stay on Top of Your Heart Health
If you have a new or existing heart problem, its vital to see a doctor. Our heart health checklist can help you determine when to seek care.
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Measure Your Heart Rate
To determine your heart rate, use your first two fingers to press lightly over the blood vessels on your inner wristthe side by your thumb. Count your pulse for ten seconds and multiply this number by six.
If your heart rate is 50 to 85 percent of your maximum heart rate, you have hit your target heart zone and are working at the right level of intensity.
Wearing a multifunctional fitness tracker such as the Fitbit, or Nike+ FuelBand SE, does the work for you. The device is worn like a bracelet or watch and measures your heart rate.
Exercising at the right level of intensity improves heart and respiratory endurance and helps keep your workout at a level that is vigorous enough to meet your health goals.
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How To View Your Heart Rate On A Fitbit
Heart rate graphs in Fitbit app
Below we’ll get into the intricacies of the heart rate monitor, but it’s worth pointing out how you can actually view your heart rate data, too.
Depending on the device itself, you should be able to see your current BPM on the home screen or by swiping. For detailed info from your exercise or on resting heart rate, you’ll need to head to the Fitbit app’s dashboard and tap through to the Heart Rate section and select the day you want to view. The same also applies to the Fitbit web app.
The Recovery Heart Rate Time After Cardio Exercise
Your heart’s ability to return to normal levels after physical activity is a good indicator of fitness. A healthy heart will recover quickly in the first three minutes after stopping exercise.
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Being out of shape or having certain health conditions can result in a higher heart rate after exercise. You can improve your recovery heart rate by becoming fitter. If a health condition is to blame, ask your doctor for her recommendation.
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Heart Rate Monitors Let You Find Your Cardio Sweet Spot
You can determine that optimal range in a number of ways. The NIH is a fantastic resource for heart rate data . Should you want a more personal approach, your doctor can help you determine your optimal heart rate. Whichever route you choose, knowing the correct range for your body will enable you to guide yourself to that workout sweet spot where physical progress lies.
Target Heart Rate Calculator
Ever ask yourself, “how do I find my target heart rate?” Finding your target heart rate is easy with our target heart rate calculator. Target heart rate calculation can be determined for any age and activity level, enabling you to use a heart rate monitor and get the most benefit from your workouts.
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Heart Rate Monitors Let You Keep An Eye On Your Heart Rate
They allow you to stay on top of cardiovascular performance and let you know when you may be pushing things a bit. The information provided by the heart rate monitor will enable you to get more from your workouts and do so without putting your health at risk. Sure, you could always get a pretty accurate read on your heart rate by checking your pulse manually . But to do so, youd need to stop what youre doing for a minute or two. And that is going to interfere with the flow of your workout.
Getting Into The Zone
What is your moderate-intensity zone? First, you need to know your maximum heart rate the upper limit of what your cardiovascular system can handle during physical activity as measured in number of heartbeats per minute.
One way to find your maximum heart rate is with a stress test, in which you walk or jog on a treadmill that makes you, and thus your heart, work progressively harder while an electrocardiograph monitors your heart’s electrical rhythms.
While this is the most accurate way to determine your maximum heart rate, a simpler option is to use a formula based on your age, which can offer a good estimate. Dr. Baggish suggests 200 minus half your age. Once you know your maximum, you can figure your target zone as 60% to 75% of that number. For example, a 70-year-old man would have a maximum heart rate of 165 beats per minute. Therefore, his moderate-intensity heart rate zone would range from 99 to 124 beats per minute.
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