Understanding Heart Rate: Measuring Fitness Part II
Your heart rate. You may remember learning how to find it gym class, but how much do you really know about it? Maybe your Fitbit, Apple Watch or other smart device tracks it for you - but so what? For a measurement to be truly helpful, we need to understand it. Luckily, I do, and I am here to help.
Resting Heart Rate
Your resting heart rate is just that, the rate of your heart while you are inactive. It’s a basic concept and an easy thing to measure, but it can tell us so much about the levels of health and fitness in an individual. Studies have shown that an elevated resting heart rate can double, and even triple your risk for death. With such strong correlations, it is certainly something to pay attention to. So what are the numbers we want? Well…
Between 60 and 100 beats per minute is normal
A healthy, relaxed adult should be under 90
An adult that exercises regularly or an athlete will likely be between 40 and 60 (40 being high-level fitness)
One of the best times to check our resting heart rate is moments after we wake up. Our body has just finished maximum inactivity and is not yet influenced by things like caffeine, stress or things of that nature.
Max Heart Rate
The maximal heart rate estimation is a tool used by health and fitness professionals to effectively prescribe aerobic exercise. This variable is needed for calculating your target heart rate that we will touch on in a few moments.
There are several formulas used to calculated your estimated max heart rate based on your level of fitness and/or age, but the most common method is to subtract 220 by your age.
Target Heart Rate
Your target heart rate, simply put, is the value or range that you should be aiming for in your aerobic exercise in order to workout at different intensities. Target heart rate is generally expressed as a percentage (usually between 50 percent and 85 percent) of your maximum safe heart rate.
A combination of moderate (40%-59% intensity) and/or vigorous (60%-84% intensity) exercise is recommended for most healthy individuals.
Monitoring the types of heart rate covered in this article is crucial to your health and fitness performance. If you have any questions about this reading or are interested in learning about your heart rate, contact me.
