Use your heart rate during a workout to determine if you're exercising too hard or not hard enough. You'll get the most out of a workout when you exercise in your target heart rate zone, which is roughly 60 to 85 percent of your maximum heart rate. Your minimum heart rate represents the low end of that scale, in the 50 to 60 percent range of your maximum heart rate.
Calculating Minumim Heart Rate
Heart rate during physical activity is measured using a target heart rate scale. Your minimum heart rate is at the lowest end of this scale and represents the number of times your heart beats per minute at 50 to 60 percent of your maximum heart rate. To determine your maximum heart rate, start with 200 and subtract your age in years. Take 50 to 60 percent of your maximum heart rate to get your minimum heart rate.
Minimum Heart Rate and Exercise
Minimum heart rate is the starting point for aerobic fitness. It helps people gauge how intense their exercise is and if they should increase or decrease intensity. Typically, exercise has the most benefits to your body while posing the fewest risks at 50 to 85 percent of your maximum heart rate. The American Heart Association recommends that people new to exercise start exercising at their minimum heart rate, or 50 percent of their maximum heart rate, then slowly build their intensity over time.
Safety Concerns
If you push yourself too hard during exercise, you put a hefty strain on your heart, circulatory system, joints and bones. Your risk of serious injury increases when you exercise over 85 percent of your maximum heart rate, no matter your fitness level. At your minimum heart rate, you're not challenging your body, but you're also increasing your heart rate just enough to get it accustomed to regular physical exercise. People who regularly exercise generally prefer to work at higher heart rates.
Determining Heart Rate During Exercise
If you're using a piece of exercise equipment that has a heart rate monitor, or if you're wearing a commercial heart rate monitor, check to to see how many times you're heart beats per minute after your warm up. It's best to check your heart rate when you're performing the exercise at an intensity you plan on sustaining. If you don't have access to a monitor, find your pulse, either at your wrist or at the side of your neck. Count how many times your heart beats in 10 seconds and multiply it by 6.
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