Fitness Heart Rate Measurement

Almost all healthcare specialists advise the practice of cardiovascular exercises and workouts to maintain an optimal level of health and fitness for the average person. But the workouts you undertake should always be congruent with your target heart rate. Doing aerobic workouts without using some sort of method to monitor your heart rate can prove to be unsafe for the well being of your heart and lungs. It is important to know pacing and how hard your heart is working when performing a cardiovascular workout, so getting  a fair idea about your heart rate measurement while working out should be an important part of your fitness plan.

The American Heart Association recommends somewhere in the range of half an hour to one hour aerobic training per week. If you do less than this over an extended period of years, it can have a negative effect on the health of your heart. As we all know, a sedentary lifestyle can lead to many health concerns down the road and the lack of enery and vitality that we all long for.Experts agree that a cardiovascular workout at least three to four times a week  will enhance health benefits down the road.

Various forms of aerobic exercises are most favored for health and fitness. It keeps your cardiovascular system in good health and works on your heart muscles requiring you to need more than normal amount of oxygen. This form of exercise makes you breathe faster to get more and more oxygen. But fitness exercise should always be within the aerobic heart rate range. This practice  gives you exercise benefits in the real sense of the term. This is where the importance comes into play of awareness monitoring your heart rate regularly while doing an aerobic workout .

The aerobic range varies somewhere between 60 to 85 percent of your maximum heart rate. But if you are obese or overweight it may be little lower. You can easily calculate your aerobic heart zone. Just subtract your age from 220. What you get is your maximum heart rate. Now multiply the heart rate with 60 percent and 80 percent. These numbers show the minimum and maximum heartbeats per minutes in your aerobic exercise range.

To make sure you are doing your cardio workout in your aerobic range, you can check this through your pulse during your exercise period. Keep in mind however, that this formula can not be applied to all people- it covers only 70 percent of the population. You may also choose to follow a heart monitor chart. But again, it may not show the real heart beat range that is appropriate for you. So it is possible that by following this, you may not be actually exercising in your target aerobic range. You can evaluate the difference by monitoring your pulse while jogging and walking. While jogging your pulse rate may be higher than what you see in the heart monitor chart, indicating that this chart may not be applicable to you.

There is an easy way to know whether or not you are working within the preferred heart rate range - you can assess it through your breathing. You are working below the range if you are breathing comfortably and can talk easily. If you are breathing deeply and are not in a position to talk comfortably, you are working within your aerobic range. If you are unable to speak at all, you are most likely working over your range.

There are other tools of monitoring your heart rate. Exercise equipment in gyms almost always comes with heart rate monitors and calculators, or there are several types of devices on the market that you can purchase which are attached to a body parts such as an arm that will do the job for you. Whether through using breathing rate awareness or actual heart rate monitors, staying aware of your target zone and when you are in it will become second nature to you after awhile when you are in the habit of regular aerobic exercise.

Privacy Policy