How Long Should You Stay In The High Heart Rate Zone
According to Tate, when you’re at your peak performance, you’re 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 you’re first starting out and when you’re 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.
Heart Rate Training Zones
Your heart rate training zone is a critical element in exercise. You must train at a variety of different heart rates in order to stimulate your body to improve your fitness level. Taking your pulse and calculating your heart rate during a workout is one of the primary indicators in ascertaining the intensity level at which you and your heart is working.
Zone 1 – Healthy Heart Zone: 50% – 60% of your Max Hr
Easiest, Most Comfortable Zone
Exercise Benefits: Body fat decreases, blood pressure lowered, cholesterol lowered, muscle mass improvements, decreased risk for degenerative diseases, safety high.
Zone 2 – Temperate Zone: 60% – 70% of your Max Hr
Cruise Zone you can train for extended periods of time in this zone 75% – 85% of all calories from fat as fuel, 6 10 calories per minute
Exercise Benefits: Gain muscle mass, lose fat mass, strengthen heart muscle, fat utilization zone, training your fat mobilization, fat transportation, your muscles to burn fat, your fat cells to increase the rate of fat release, increase in the number of mitochondria in the muscle.
Zone 3 – Aerobic Zone: 70% – 80% of your Max Hr
Transition Zone from two health zones to two performance zones still feels comfortable, you will break a sweat, but no anaerobic burn sensation
Zone 4 – Threshold Zone: 80% – 90% of your Max Hr
Max Calorie Burn Zone
Zone 5 – Performance Redline Zone: 90% – 100% of your Max Hr
Peak Race Zone Athlete Only Zone!
Shop
What Are The Things To Remember While Reaching Your Target Heart Rate Zone
- Never skip warming up or cooling down during exercising. Skipping these can cause muscle injury and chronic pain.
- Choose exercises that suit you. You can do muscle strength training and aerobic activities. Aim for at least twice a week strength training of all major muscles . You can use free weights or do activities such as planks, squats, or lunges.
- There are two kinds of aerobic activities. You can do any one of these or a combination of these.
- Moderate aerobic activity: Get at least 150 minutes a week of moderate aerobic activity such as brisk walking or swimming.
- Vigorous physical activity: Get at least 75 minutes a week of vigorous aerobic activity such as jogging or running.
Don’t Miss: Ibs Heart Palpitations
What Should My Heart Rate Be During Exercise
Are you not pushing yourself enough, or pushing yourself too hard when you exercise? If you are looking to get more involved in a cardio exercise routine, knowing your maximum heart rate is a key tool in deciding how vigorous your exercises should be. It will also help you to track how effective your workouts are!
Moderate exercises are a great way to improve your fitness level and heart health, especially if you have underlying conditions that make fitness a challenging task for you. If you are engaging in moderate cardio, your breathing should be faster paced than normal, but not uncomfortable. You should not be sweating intensely during exercises like these. For example, this type of exercise can be compared to a briskly paced walk. Other examples of moderate paced exercises include: water aerobics, slow biking, and leisurely swimming.
A vigorous exercise is a lot more intense than a moderate one. You will notice that during these exercises, you are more out of breath, talking in full sentences will be more difficult, and you will most likely be sweating more. Vigorous exercises can be as simple as speeding up a normal paced walk into a brisk walk, faster paced jogging, or even hopping on a low impact elliptical machine.
Lets look at what your target heart rate should be for both of these categories:
Maximum Heart rate = 220
Easy Steps To Find Your Target Heart Rate Range
Ryan Lawson, Exercise Specialist
Were all familiar with the phrase use it or lose it, and it perfectly applies to our body and muscles. Muscles are made to be used, and if theyre neglected its our health and quality of life that suffers.
Cardiovascular exercise is defined as any activity that increases your heart rate. Elevating your heart rate for an extended period of time will improve your heart health. A stronger, healthier heart is able to more efficiently deliver oxygen to the muscles and also burn more fat while youre exercising and resting.
The benefits of a stronger heart through cardiovascular exercise are numerous. In addition to a stronger heart and lungs, regular exercise has been shown to lead to better sleep, less stress, reduction in mood swings and depression and an overall more active lifestyle.
You have a target heart rate zone that you should strive for during activity. A simple way to calculate it would be to first find your predicted maximum heart rate, which you can find by subtracting your age from 220. Once youve figured your maximum heart rate, you can find your target healthy heart rate range by multiplying your maximum heart rate by 65 percent to find the low end of that range and multiply your maximum heart rate by 85 percent to find the high end of the range.
Example: The maximum heart rate for a 45-year-old is 175 and the target heart rate range would be about 113 to 149 beats per minute.
Also Check: Does Benadryl Increase Your Heart Rate
Where Should My Heart Rate Be When I Do Cardio Training
Your fitness level will dictate where your heart rate should be during cardio training. Depending on what Stage of cardio training you are in, your heart rate should be anywhere between 65 – 90% of your maximum heart rate. You will first want to determine your maximum heart rate with the following equation: 220 – Your Age. Initially, you will want to engage in lower levels of intensity , whereby the only heart rate zone you will use is zone 1- 65 – 75% of your maximum heart rate. Once you are able to complete this training for 30 minutes it is an indication that you can progress to a more advanced type of training in cardiorespiratory Stage training. Stage II cardio training involves the incorporation of more intense intervals after which you recover in lower intensity of 65 – 75% MHR. After progressing through Stage II, you can then begin training in Stage III where you incorporate a much more intense interval of cardio followed by a reduced workload and finally recovering in the lower intensity level . For example, if you are 40 years old, you would use the above calculations in the following manner: 220 – 40= 180 MHR. Zone 1 is a target heart rates of 180 x .65 – 180 x .75 , zone 2 target heart rates of 180 x .80 – 180 x .85 , and zone 3 target heart rates of 180 x .86 – 180 x .90 .
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, it’s vital to see a doctor. Our heart health checklist can help you determine when to seek care.
Recommended Reading: Can Constipation Cause Heart Palpitations
How Do I Find My Target Heart Rate
To find your target heart rate zone, you first have to know your max heart rate. The simplest way to determine that is to subtract your age from 220. That number is a general guideline for your max heart rate. Then multiply that number times the percentage listed in the exercise heart rate zone you want to be in.
For example, a 40-year-old woman has a max heart rate of 180 beats per minute . To exercise in the lower-intensity zone, multiply 180 times 50% or 60%. The target heart rate would range from 90 to 108 for a low-intensity workout.
Some exercise machines like treadmills automatically track your heart rate for you. But you can also track it yourself by wearing a heart rate monitor or fitness tracker.
What heart rate is too high?
Anything over your max heart rate is unsafe. But its also about duration, says Travers. You can do short bursts in a higher, more intense heart rate zone. Overall, though, its best to spend longer periods in a zone below your max heart rate.
How Often Should You Do Cardio
Although theres no correct answer because it varies upon the person – its generally admitted that five days of cardio per week with at least thirty-minute sessions at a moderate pace is the standard.
Others might prefer more vigorous routines for the same amount of time, but these dont need to be done as frequently if thats the case. For someone whos trying to get in shape or lose weight, try two days of moderate cardio and two days of vigorous training or high-intensity interval training for those four days.
Interval training has been proven to burn fat and calories at a faster rate than traditional cardio routines, but it can be done in much smaller amounts of time if need be. These training sessions are more intense due to the shortened rest time, but HIIT workouts do an excellent job of keeping your heart rate at an optimal level well after exercising.
Once again, it generally depends on the person – its not smart to jump into a highly intense cardio training routine if youve never run consistently before. Be smart about how you build up your lungs to handle certain types of exercises. If youre looking to try something that can be used at home, check out EnergyFits new dual-function Ski-Row Air machine – a first-of-its-kind dual-function Ski Trainer and Row Machine that can perform light to intense cardio sessions as well as HIIT workouts as well!
Read Also: Can Flonase Cause Heart Palpitations
Heart Rate Zone : 90100% Of Hrmax
Heart rate zone 5 is your maximal effort. Your heart and your blood and respiratory system will be working at their maximal capacity. Lactic acid will build up in your blood and after a few minutes you wont be able to continue at this intensity.
If youre just starting out or have only been training for some time, you probably wont have to train at this intensity. If youre a professional athlete, look into incorporating interval training into your training plan for peak performance.
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
Read Also: Vitamin D3 And Heart Palpitations
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.
Read more:Health Check: in terms of exercise, is walking enough?
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.
What Are Exercise Heart Rate Zones
Heart rate zones are a percentage of your maximum heart rate . Exercise too close to your maximum HR and your heart and body will struggle to keep up with the demands.
The goal of heart rate zones is to make you the most efficient, but to allow you to challenge yourself to improve cardiovascular fitness, says Travers.
Exercise heart rate zones are the training levels based on your maximum heart rate. As you increase your pace, cadence and workload, you increase the demands on your heart. Travers breaks it down:
- Lower-intensity zone: Youre exercising at 50% to 60% of your max heart rate. At this point, 85% of the calories you burn are fat. The downside? Youre burning fewer calories overall than you would if you were exercising at a higher intensity. Youre generally able to sustain this zone the longest amount of time.
- Temperate zone: Youre exercising at 60% to 70% of your max heart rate. Roughly 65% of the calories you burn are fat.
- Aerobic zone: Working at 70% to 80% of your max heart rate puts you in the aerobic zone. About 45% of the calories you burn are fat. But youre burning a higher number of overall calories compared to the other heart rate zones. You generally sustain this zone the shortest amount of time.
Don’t Miss: Does Tylenol Increase Heart Rate
Exercise Heart Rates For 70 Year Olds
Light to Moderate Exercise
The target pulse rate zone for a 70 year old male to burn fat during light to moderate exercise is 75 to 103 beats per minute1. 70 year old females working out to loose weight should exercise between 72 and 100 bpm. This exercise range corresponds to 50% to 69% of the maximum target rate for your age.
Moderate to Intense Exercise
The American Heart Association recommends hard exercise up to 85% of your maximum heart rate1. The target zone during intense exercise ranges from 105 to 128 beats per minute for a 70 year old male and between 101 and 123 for females.
Maximum Heart Rate
Maximum heart rate is the upper threshold that your cardiovascular system can sustain during physical exertion. This rate decreases with age. The maximum heart rate for males can be estimated using the Karvonen method as 220 minus your age. So for 70 year old men, the maximum rate is approximately 150 beats per minute. A modified HRmax formula specific to women has been developed as 206 minus 88 percent of your age2. This method results in a 144 beats per minute maximum pulse for a 70 year old female. See also: Resting heart rates for 70 year olds
Exercise heart training zones chart for 70 year old men
| % Max |
|---|