When it comes to exercising, you may have noticed that professional athletes and people who are really serious about working out often wear heart rate monitors.
You might be wondering why athletes do this and what the benefits are. So, why exercise with a heart rate monitor, what does it tell you, and what are the benefits of doing so?
What Your Heart Rate Tells You
Your heart rate measures how many times per minute your heart contracts. When resting, your average heart rate, if you are healthy, should be between 60 and 100 beats per minute.
However, in athletes who engage in a lot of training, or in other words, people who are fit and very healthy, may have a resting heart rate as low as 40 beats per minute. The lower your resting heart rate is, the more efficiently your heart and lungs are working to supply your body with the oxygen it requires to function.
When it comes to your active heart rate, things get a little more complicated. When you are active, your heart rate is going to increase because when you are active, your muscles and organs require larger amounts of oxygen to continue functioning properly.
It is important for athletes and regular exercisers to know what their maximum heart rate is, and what the heart rate is during exercise when compared to that maximum possible heart rate.
In other words, measuring your heart rate during exercise can tell you how intense your exercise is and how well your body is coping with that specific level of activity. This is a way of measuring how much your body is exerting itself when exercising.
Exercise and Maximum Heart Rate
When exercising, something important to know is what your maximum heart rate is. This is because if you know what your maximum heart rate is, when you go to measure your heart rate during exercise, you can gauge just how much any given workout is taxing your body.
The closer your heart gets to the maximum heart rate during exercise, the harder your body is working to sustain that level of activity. This is a direct indication of how hard your body is working and how much oxygen is passing through your system.
Moreover, your active heart rate during exercise is an indication of how well your heart and lungs function to supply your body with oxygen. The harder your heart is pumping and the harder your lungs are heaving, the closer you are to your maximum heart rate.
It means that your body is working hard to supply your body with oxygen, a sign that the exercise is very intense or that your body is having trouble coping (such as due to health conditions).
Therefore, using a heart rate monitor can tell you what your heart rate is at any given time, a reading which you can then use to compare to your maximum heart rate, and therefore gauge the intensity of a workout, as well as your overall health.
So, what is your maximum heart rate, how do you figure it out, and how do you measure it?
Determining Your Maximum Heart Rate and Exercise Intensity Levels
To determine what your maximum heart rate is, you would multiple your age by 0.7. So, if you’re 25 years old, this would equal 17.5.
You then take this number (17.5), and subtract it from 208, which equals roughly 190 beats per minute. This would be your maximum heart rate. So, what does this mean in relation to the intensity of your workout?
Low Intensity
If your heart is beating at between 60% and 70% of your maximum heart rate, it means that you are engaged in a low intensity workout for your body.
Using our example from above, if your maximum heart rate is 190 BPM, a low intensity workout would have your heart beating at between 114 and 133 BPM.
Moderate Intensity
If your heart is beating at between 70% to 85% of your maximum heart rate, it means that you are engaged in a workout of moderate intensity.
Using our example, this would mean that your heart is beating at between 133 and 162 BPM. This means that your body is working fairly hard to continue functioning, particularly to supply your body with oxygen.
High Intensity
If your heart is beating at above 85% of your maximum heart rate, it qualifies as a high intensity workout. This means that your heart is beating at anywhere from 162 to 190 BPM.
This is the best intensity level to exercise at if you are looking to burn calories, lose weight, and train your organs and muscles to function more efficiently.
Conclusion
The bottom line is that if you use a heart rate monitor to exercise, you can gauge just how hard your body is working to maintain said level of intensity. It tells you how hard your heart and lungs need to work to supply your body with oxygen at any given level of exercise.
It’s a good way not only to measure how intense your exercise is for your body, but also to help train harder so you can decrease your heart rate over time, as well as to decrease how hard your body needs to work to maintain a certain intensity level.