Understanding Your Target Heart Rate
Nearly all exercise is good. But to be sure youre getting the most fromyour workout yet staying at a level thats safe for you, you can monitorhow hard your heart is working.
Aiming for whats called a target heart rate can help you do this, says Johns Hopkins cardiologist Seth Martin, M.D., M.P.H. Think of it as the sweet spot between not exercising hard enough and overexerting.
How Long Does An Elevated Heart Rate Last After Exercise
If youve completed a session of low to moderate aerobic exercise intensity, your heart rate will usually get back to normal between 10 to 20 minutes after exercise.
However, if youve worked out for speed, power, and strength, youll be making use of energy from anaerobic energy systems, which means youll endure less recovery time between sets. When working out for muscular endurance and anaerobic fitness, your heart rate will increase incrementally throughout the workout.
This is why it takes longer for your heart rate to go back to normal after the exercise youre looking at between 20 and 40 minutes.
This basically occurs as a result of more demand put on the cardiovascular system to move more blood out of working muscles and return the blood to vital organs, while cleaning out waste products: CO2 and lactate.
If your exercise intensity fluctuated during your session, your heart rate will also fluctuate. This has been seen in periods of high-intensity exercise mixed with periods of lower-intensity exercise.
The heart rate will basically copy the intensity it will increase when the intensity does and increase when the intensity drops.
Examining The Aging Factor
You calculated your heart-rate ranges. Working out seems easier and more fun by the minute. Dont forget to recalculate your rates as your next birthday comes and goes. Every year, your targeted heart rates will decrease in value. Subtracting your age from 220 creates a smaller number each year.
Apply the new rates to your workouts so that youre always in a safe zone. If your body is accustomed to exercising each week, the changes wont be too drastic. Your heart rate is important at every age.
Heart disease is one of the most common ailments that afflict society today. Change those statistics by paying attention to your heart rate and exercise intensity. By working your heart like the muscle that it is, the tissue can stand the test of time. Appreciate your heart and the work it does as you enjoy life to the fullest.
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Which Exercise Is Best For Heart
Here are the best exercises to strengthen your heart. Walking. Yes, it might seem a little too easy. Weight training. live well centers. Swimming. Swimming isnt just for lazy summer afternoons. Yoga. Although it might not seem like it, yoga is great for your heart health. Interval training. Cycling.
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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Its Even Easier With This Heart Rate Calculator:
Lets use a 35-year old person as an example:
- max heart rate = 220 35
- max heart rate = 185
- target heart rate for max performance = max heart rate x .85
- target heart rate = 185 x .85
- target heart rate = approx. 157
Getting healthy and staying fit requires training in an appropriate heart rate zone. The easiest way to do this is by wearing a heart rate monitor or smartwatch. Many of the most popular devices are compatible with the adidas Running and adidas Training apps to make tracking your health and fitness easy and fun.
The app guides your workouts so that you are always in the most effective heart rate zone for your unique body.
When Should You Worry About Your Heart Rate
Some people never notice the rate or rhythm of their heart, while others notice every minor irregularity . In the absence of symptoms , that’s not an indication of trouble. An abnormal rate or rhythm may be discovered during a physical exam, ECG, or other testing, even in healthy people who have no symptoms.
Common symptoms of a slow heart rate include:
- fatigue
- dizziness, lightheadedness, fainting or near-fainting
- confusion
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Avoid Sitting For Long Periods Of Time
Even if you are an avid runner or even a semi-professional athlete, sitting like a couch potato afterwards actually counteracts the physical efforts you had made beforehand. Studies have shown that sitting at your desk or on your couch for long periods of time is just as harmful to your body as smoking does.
That said, we encourage you to get up every so often to walk around and stretch your legs, as means of stimulating your heart rate from time to time and keeping yourself active in the process. In the end, it will be beneficial to your body.
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.
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The Five Heart Rate Zones
There are five heart rate zones that correspond to how intense your workout is. The zones range from 50% of your maximum heart rate up to 100% of it. The zones are as follows:
- Zone 1 50%-60%
- Noticeably light intensity workout. Suitable for a warm-up, recovery, or cool down workout.
How To Calculate Target And Maximum Heart Rates
You can calculate your target and maximum heart rates using the formula below.
To determine your maximum heart rate, subtract your age from 220. Your target heart rate zone is determined based upon your maximum heart rate. You want to stay within 5075 percent of your maximum heart rate during exercise, depending upon your fitness level.
To find your target heart rate, multiply your maximum heart rate by 0.50. This will give you the low range number.
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Target Heart Rates Chart
What should your heart rate be when working out, and how can you keep track of it? Our simple chart will help keep you in the target training zone, whether you want to lose weight or just maximize your workout. Find out what normal resting and maximum heart rates are for your age and how exercise intensity and other factors affect heart rate.
Why Is It So Important To Monitor Your Heart Rate When Exercising
There are some people who becomes breathless even during a 10-minute warm-up while there are also those who can endure an hour or more without going out of breath and still being able to engage in a conversation. So the question is, is it because one is exercising more than the other? Well, the answer depends on the capacity and endurance of your heart.
When the topic concerns your exercise and your heart rate, knowing your intended heart rate will make you be aware of how much effort you’re exerting or how much more effort you need to put in. If you keep track of your heart rate while exercising and have an idea on what zone you need to be in, you can adjust your intensity while also saving some effort so that you can make the most out of your workout.
Increase your heart rate
Aerobic exercises can easily increase your rate and keep the blood flowing. Cycling, plyometric, skipping, swimming, and High Intensity Interval Training are all known to be aerobic exercises.
If you perform any of the said aerobic exercises, you are working your heart, lungs, and circulatory system to supply nutrients and oxygen to the working muscles. Research also agrees on the fact that if you’re good at aerobic exercises, you are likely to improve your overall health and lessen your risk of getting chronic diseases.
Reasons why exercise is good for the heart
Get into the zone
At this point, you will know your target training zone from one of the following methods:
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Find Your Workout Heart
Understanding your workout heart-rate training zones can help you better measure your exercise intensity. “The talk test and RPE are low-tech guides, but heart rate will give you more concrete, objective data about where you are in terms of intensity,” says David Wing, M.S., an exercise physiologist at the University of California San Diego. Plus, noting how quickly your heart rate declines after intervals is another way to track fitness gains.
Here are the key workout heart-rate zonesexpressed as percentages of your max heart ratethat you should know.
Active recovery zone: 40 percent to 65 percent
This low-intensity range encompasses what is known as the fat-burning zone. But if you really want to burn fat and lose weight, working out harder will torch more total caloriesand ultimately more fatin less time.
Conditioning or endurance zone: 65 percent to 75 percent
“You’re creating the ability to use more oxygen here,” says Wing. If you want to train yourself to run longer, get comfy at this moderate to moderately hard intensity.
Performance zone: 75 percent to 85 percent
Exercising in this vigorous-intensity range trains you to go harder for longer, and can help increase your speed and power.
High-intensity zone: 85 to 95 percent
Do brief spurts of 10 to 60 seconds here, alternating with an easy pace, in the Conditioning or Active Recovery zone, suggests Wing. Build up to do HIIT one or more days a week.
Importance Of Monitoring Your Workout Heart Rate
While a regular aerobic workout can strengthen your heart, overdoing it or overheating could hurt you. Its important to exercise at a safe and effective level. This is crucial if you have a heart or cardiovascular condition. Monitoring your target heart rate can help you stay in a safe exercise heart rate.
And, because medicines may change your heart rate, its important to check with your health care provider before starting an exercise routine. If this is the case, there are better ways to gauge your exercise intensity than monitoring your heart rate.
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Ways To Monitor Your Heart Rate During Exercise: With Or Without Equipment
Keeping track of your heart rate during a workout is easy with a heart rate monitor. Today’s monitors don’t even require a chest strap. You can purchase a bracelet that reads the beat of the radial heart rate at the inside of your wrist and then displays that up-to-the-second value to you like a watch.
If you don’t have the funds for a heart rate monitor, you can take your own pulse. Press the tips of your forefinger and middle finger of your right hand onto the blood vessels at the inside of your left wrist. Count how many times your heart beats for 10 seconds and then multiply that value by 6 to determine your heart rate in beats per minute. While this method is relatively simple, it often requires you to slow or even stop your workout while you count and watch a clock.
If you’d rather not slow your workout to check your pulse, an easy way to gauge whether you’re within your target heart rate range is to use the “talk test.” If you feel like you can easily hold a conversation while you’re working out, you’re not working at a high enough intensity and need to pick it up. If you feel like you would struggle to get any words out, you’re working out at too high of an intensity and need to ease up a bit. Ideally, you feel like you can hold a conversation, but would struggle to talk in long sentences. When this happens, you can be pretty well assured that your heart rate is within the target heart rate range.
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Signs You May Be Working Out Too Intensely
As you exercise, be aware of your bodys response. Signs you may be exercising too intensely include:
- dizziness or lightheadedness
- shortness of breath that makes conversation difficult
- exhaustion or unusual fatigue
- feeling as if your heart is suddenly racing or pounding
- any chest pain or pressure in your:
- teeth
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What Causes Increased Heart Rate
Stressful emotions , such as anxiety, anger, and fear, can cause a persons heart rate to increase. When the body experiences stress, the adrenal glands release epinephrine, or adrenaline. The body has two adrenal glands, one on top of each kidney. The body uses epinephrine to prepare a person for immediate action.
Beginner Tips For Heart Rate Zone Training
Working out can seem overwhelming, especially when you are short on time and energy after work. Using the latest tech and the adidas Runtastic apps makes staying on top of your workouts easy, so all you have to do is show up and let the app guide your training.
Here are five beginner tips to keep in mind when starting heart rate zone based workouts:
Note:The above-mentioned tips and calculations apply to healthy individuals. If you have any heart problems, are on any medication, or have been advised by your doctor to stay within a certain bpm range, make sure you follow their instructions. And, as always, check with your doctor before starting any new fitness regimen.
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Tracking Heart Rate For Training Purposes
The information Ive given you so far is like a general guide to tracking your heart rate. Think of it as a safety guide.
However, if you go more in-depth with tracking heart rate, you can then use it as a tool to meet your fitness goals.
I get it for the non-athlete that sounds like a lot of work. Relax! Its not. You just need to turn tracking into a habit, and it will become a natural part of your routine.
To use heart rate tracking as a training tool, youll need to know about the five heart rate zones as well as aerobic and anaerobic thresholds. Here is a breakdown of these points.
Target Heart Rate And Maximum Heart Rate
This is where tracking heart rate is the most important. As I stated before, youll get the maximum benefit when youre around your target heart rate for your age group.
However, in order to understand the different zones of recommended target heart rates, youll need to know about your maximum heart rate.
The American Heart Association suggests that your maximum heart rate is 220 minus your age.
So, if youre 30, your safe maximum heart rate would be 190 bpm. Despite this being your safe maximum heart rate, you should not workout at this heart rate. You should workout at your target heart rate.
According to the Center for Disease Control , you should aim to hit a heart rate of 64% to 76% of your maximum heart rate. This gives you a range to work with.
For a 30-year-old, that range would be 141 to 167 bpm. This target range means that youre getting a medium-intensity workout.
Anything below the above suggested range could be considered as a low-intensity workout and anything above this would be a high-intensity workout.
However, its suggested that anything over 85% of your maximum heart rate may do more harm than good.
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The Importance Of Heart Rate When Exercising
When you were a child, the importance of exercise was probably stressed by your parents and teachers. Playing, running and other activities made you feel good. As youve developed into an adult, its harder to find time for exercise. Its time to prioritize exercise in your life because its effects on your heart are numerous and extremely important. In fact, your heart rate is a measurement that should always be tested as you try new and exciting exercises.