Exercise & Increased Heart Rate

Exercise causes your heart to beat faster. This elevated heart rate provides your muscles with the additional oxygen and other nutrients they need to function properly. Training your heart through exercise improves your cardiovascular function and decreases your chances of heart disease.

Resting Heart Rate

Your resting heart rate represents how fast your heart beats while you sit quietly. Adults typically have resting heart rates of 60 to 80 beats per minute. Even light forms of exercise, such as housework, cause your heart to pump faster. The harder you work, the faster your heart has to beat. As your heart becomes fit, your resting heart rate may decrease.

Resistance Training and Heart Rate

Resistance training causes your heart rate for different reasons than aerobic activity. Your heart beats increases faster during resistance training than during aerobic exercise, according the American Council on Exercise. This rise in heart rate results from a phenomenon known as the pressor response. Pressor response is how your autonomic nervous system responds when you make your muscles work against a resistance force. Resistance training does not decrease your resting heart rate, even when performed on a regular basis, because pressor response actually decreases the amount of blood pumped with each beat.

Aerobic Exercise and Heart Rate

Aerobic exercise causes heart rate increases based on your intensity level. The harder you exercise, the faster your heart beats and the more blood your heart pumps with every beat to meet the increased energy needs of your muscles. The increased energy demands of your muscles overload the cardiorespiratory system, causing it to strengthen and beat more efficiently.

Target Heart Rate Zone

Your heart increases in strength and efficiency only when you exercise within your target heart rate zone for 10 minutes or more, explains Patricia Pierce, a professor of Rehabilitative and Exercise Sciences at Slippery Rock University in Slippery Rock, Pa. Your target heart rate equals 50 to 80 percent of your maximum heart rate, which can be roughly estimated at about 220 minus your age. Please note that these calculations are estimates. People often have a lower or higher maximum heart rate, which alters your target heart rate. Your age, gender and use of certain medications, such as digoxin, anti-arrhythmic medications, beta blockers and some calcium blockers, can alter your maximum heart rate by as much as 15 to 20 beats per minute, according to Stanley P. Brown, et al., authors of "Exercise Physiology." Consult your doctor, a personal trainer or exercise physiologist to determine a more definitive range for your target heart rate zone.

Heart Rate Monitoring

"Monitor your heart rate after every 15 to 20 minutes of exercise to ensure you stay within your target heart rate zone, especially if you do not exercise regularly," advises Patricia Pierce, a professor of Rehabilitative and Exercise Sciences at Slippery Rock University in Slippery Rock, Pa. Keep your heart rate at the lower end of the zone if you do not exercise on a regular basis and on the higher end if you exercise regularly. Monitor your heart rate by placing your index finger and middle finger over the carotid artery in the neck and counting the number of times your heart beats in six seconds. Multiply this number by 10. For instance, if you counted 14 beats, your heart rate is around 140 beats per minute. Pierce explains that because target heart rate zones vary from person to person, you may want to gauge your exercise intensity solely on how you feel rather than your heart rate. Therefore, even if your heart rate falls within your estimated target zone, you may want to increase your intensity if you feel like the workout is easy or decrease your intensity if you feel the workout is very hard, cannot catch your breath, feel pain or feel exhausted by the end of your workout.