We often hear about aerobic exercise to improve heart health, but how hard do you have to work to reap the benefits?
Before I answer that, it’s important to know a little bit about heart rate, which is one reliable way to determine exercise intensity. Expressed in beats per minute, your heart rate reflects your body’s ability to provide oxygenated blood to your tissues. Your muscles need a lot more oxygen when you’re exercising; otherwise, they wouldn’t be able to continue to contract. The more intense your workout, the higher your heart rate.
Many products — such as chest straps (like Polar’s heart rate monitors) and wristbands (think FitBits) — monitor heart rate. But the only equipment you really need to measure it is a standard watch with a second hand. Once you have that, you’re ready to get started assessing your heart health. Here’s how:
Resting Heart Rate
You can determine your resting heart rate by placing your fingers in the groove of your neck or on the outside of your wrist and counting the pulsations you feel for 15 seconds. Then, multiply that number by four. To get an accurate reading, it’s important to wait at least an hour after exercising and to sit comfortably.
Most likely, your heart rate will be between 60 and 100 beats per minute, but it may fall outside of those values based on your medications, diseases and fitness level. The more fit you are, the lower your resting heart rate will be, since strong hearts can pump more blood with each beat. Some Olympic athletes have a resting heart rate as low as 40 beats per minute.
That said, a resting heart rate below 50 beats per minute or greater than 100 beats per minute could signal a medical condition such an eating disorder or a heart arrhythmia, so see your doctor if your rate seems extreme.
Maximum Heart Rate
Maximum heart rate, or HRmax, is how fast your heart beats when you’re expending all of your effort. You shouldn’t be able to maintain exercise at this intensity. To truly measure HRmax, trained professionals use sensitive physiological equipment, which is costly and time-consuming. However, you can use a simple formula to estimate your HRmax — all you need to know is your age. Simply subtract that number from 220. So, a 30-year-old woman would have an estimated HRmax of 190 beats per minute.
Target Heart Rate
Since exercising at HRmax isn’t sustainable, determining a target heart rate (or THR) is a great way to modify a workout’s intensity. The American College of Sports Medicine recommends setting a THR range; for healthy adults, that’s 50 to 85 percent of HRmax. People with conditions that might impact their ability to exercise — such as asthma or pregnancy — can alter their range and tailor their workouts to fall within it.
To determine your THR, you simply use either the standard age-based equation or the Karvonen formula, which also takes resting heart rate — an index of a person’s fitness — into account. Both formulas can be found here.
No matter which method you use, measuring heart rate is a reliable way to monitor your response to exercise. By tracking your resting heart rate over time, you can also monitor your progress since this value should drop as your heart gets stronger.
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