Monitoring your heart rate during exercise is a quick and easy way to keep track of your progress and overall physical exertion. The key to getting the most out of your workouts is knowing how to find the correct balance between over-working your body and not working hard enough. This can be done by determining your target heart rate zone.
Heart Rate and Fitness
Your heart is the strongest, and most important, muscle in your body, and so it's important to ensure that you exercise it. You can measure your fitness level by how many times your heart beats per minute. According to Dr. Edward R. Laskowski of the Mayo Clinic, a well-trained athlete may have a normal resting heart rate of about 40 beats per minute. For the average adult, this figure is higher at around 60 to 100 bpm. A lower number signifies better heart function and overall fitness.
American Heart Association
The American Heart Association has developed a simple way to determine your target heart rate zone during exercise. This is a range that you should stick to when exercising to realize the maximum aerobic benefit of the workout. You can determine your target heart rate by first subtracting your age in years from 220; this equals your maximum heart rate. Your target heart rate zone is 50 to 85 percent of your maximum heart rate. Take your maximum heart rate and multiply it by 0.5 to get the low end and 0.85 to get the high end of your target heart rate zone.
Karvonen Formula
The AHA's basic guidelines are relatively accurate, but not for well-trained athletes or those on either extreme when it comes to overall fitness. By utilizing the Karvonen Formula, which factors in your resting heart rate, you can get a more accurate depiction of your target heart rate zone, according to Phil Davies, a certified strength and condition specialist. Subtract your resting heart rate from your maximum heart rate. Then multiply this number by 0.6 for the low end and by 0.9 for the high end. Finally, add your resting heart rate to each of these results to determine your target heart rate zone.
Physical Exertion Guide
Davies points out that there are different levels of training exertion you can aim for depending on the fitness results you seek. These are depicted as the 0.6 to 0.9 multipliers in the Karvonen Formula. The recovery zone is between 60 and 70 percent of your maximum exertion. The aerobic fitness zone -- ideal for improving aerobic capacity -- is reached at 70 to 80 percent of your maximum physical exertion. Anaerobic is the most intense level of exertion at between 80 and 90 percent, and this level of exertion is ideal for improving the way your body handles lactic acid build-up in your muscles.
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