If you're accustomed to a sedentary lifestyle, exercising to the point where your heart rate rises dramatically could be dangerous. Consult your doctor if you have concerns about your heart function, but understand that the faster your heart beats during exercise, the greater the health benefits. Professional athletes routinely exercise to between 85 and 90 percent of their maximum heart rates, but you don't have to get your heart beating that fast to benefit from exercise.
Assess Your Fitness Level
The more efficient and healthy your heart is, the fewer times it needs to beat per minute to circulate blood through your system. People of average health tend to have a resting heart rate of between 50 and 60 beats per minute. If your heart beats more than that, you're heart is of below average health and you should consult a doctor about an exercise regimen. Determine your resting heart rate when you are most relaxed and lying down, ideally a couple of minutes after you wake up in the morning. Take your pulse for 10 seconds, then multiply the number of heart beats by six to determine your beats per minute.
Calculate Your Maximum Heart Rate
The only way to get a completely accurate assessment of your maximum heart rate --- the greatest number of times your heart can beat per minute --- is with an electrocardiogram. However, to roughly estimate the number, subtract your age from 220. If you're overweight or underweight, another calculation lets you factor this into your equation. Subtract half your age from 210, then subtract five percent of your total body weight. If you're a woman, add four to the result to get your maximum heart rate; if you're a man, add nothing.
Determine Your Target Heart Rate
Your target heart rate when working out will be a percentage of your maximum heart rate. Athletes typically get their hearts beating at 85 to 90 percent of their target rates, but if you've been sedentary a long time, it wouldn't be wise to jump into such strenuous exercise. Start at 50 to 60 percent of your maximum heart rate and gradually build up the intensity of your workout. The higher your heart rate gets, the more calories you burn and the more you strengthen your heart.
Abnormally High Heart Rate
After you've determined your maximum heart rate and understand what activities raise your heart rate to a certain level, you may encounter situations where your heart beats faster than usual doing the same activity at the same intensity level. Many factors could contribute to this, including higher temperatures, higher humidity, medications you may be taking, variations in your diet, or dehydration. If such factors don't account for an unusually high heart rate during a workout, see a health care professional immediately.
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