When you exercise, your heart rate accelerates to deliver needed oxygen to your working muscles. The harder you work, the more oxygen your body requires, and your heart rate will rise accordingly. For this reason, your heart rate during exercise depends on the intensity of your normal workout.
Target Heart Rate
To help you determine how hard you're working during exercise, doctors and scientists have created a concept called target heart rate. This target rate indicates how hard you need to push yourself to get the desired health benefits from aerobic activity. To accurately calculate your target heart rate, first determine your maximum heart rate, which gives you a solid estimate of how hard you can exercise without exceeding your heart's safe maximum capacity. Determine this rate by subtracting your age from 220.
Determining Your Desired Rate
Once you know your maximum heart rate, you can decide how hard you want to exert yourself during your normal workout and set your target heart rate. Inexperienced exercisers and individuals warming up for a more strenuous workout typically set a target rate equal to 50 to 60 percent of their maximum capacity. Experienced exercisers typically work at 60 to 70 percent of their maximum. Experienced athletes training for endurance events typically work at 70 to 80 percent of their maximum, while athletes seeking to maximize their performance work at levels as high as 80 to 90 percent of capacity. Some top athletes also briefly work their hearts at 90 to 100 of their maximum limit.
Tracking Your Rate
Track your target heart rate during exercise by checking your pulse at locations such as your neck, wrists or the backs of your knees. Casual exercisers who don't want to check their pulses can also get a good general estimate of their exertion levels by tracking how hard it is to hold a conversation during their workout. If you can talk with some effort, you're probably working within your target zone. If you can talk easily or sing, you probably haven't reached your target zone. If you can't hold a conversation without running out of breath, you have probably exceeded your target level of exertion. You can also use a heart rate monitor to track your efforts.
Considerations
If you're new to exercise, the American Heart Association recommends that you keep your workout heart rate at 50 percent of maximum for at least several weeks. Over the next few months, slowly build your target rate up to 75 percent of maximum. After half a year or so of regular workouts, you may condition your body enough to raise your target rate as high as 85 percent of maximum. However, to get general fitness benefits from your activity, you typically don't need to work out at such an advanced level. Talk to your doctor for more information before you begin your exercise routine.
