Understanding how to calculate your heart rate in a cardio fitness program is essential to getting desired results. While being active by doing various types of cardiovascular exercise is important, to achieve maximal results, you must be able to exercise at the proper intensity level for cardio exercise. Properly calculating your heart rate for cardio fitness will provide you with a starting point for improving your cardio fitness levels.
Step 1
Select an effective method to calculate your heart rate for your cardio fitness program. Whether you are a novice or advanced exerciser, you must find out the starting point for your heart for cardio fitness. While there are several equations you can use for finding heart rate during cardio exercise, pick a few easy and practical ones that you can implement into your cardio fitness plan. Two methods that fit this bill are the percentage of heart rate formula and the Rating of Perceived Exertion Scale. In the textbook "The NSCA's Essentials of Personal Training," authors Rogers and Baechle advocate using both methods.
Step 2
Calculate percentage of heart rate maximum. The formula for percentage of heart rate maximum is:
Heart Rate Maximum = 220 - Age
Heart Rate Maximum x intensity (50 percent and 85 percent) = Percentage of maximum heart rate.
This is a quick and simple way to calculate your heart rate for cardio fitness, and it is very practical. However, this method does not provide you a running update on heart rate, nor does it provide you a way to assess your heart rate based on the general feelings you are experiencing during cardio exercise.
Step 3
Use the Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE) Scale. In the March 2007 "International Journal of Sports Physiology Performance," researchers indicated that RPE is not only effective for cardio, but also for resistance training heart rate. Therefore, it is a very simple yet powerful means for heart rate calculation. The RPE scale is a scale on a sheet of paper that goes from six to 20. During cardio exercise, you choose how you feel on the scale. Six means you are not working hard at all, and 20 would be as if you were working at your maximum level.
During cardio exercise, place this sheet somewhere close to you and refer to it when you are exercising. Every few minutes during cardio exercise, point to where you believe you are on the scale. Take into consideration a whole body feeling and not just how you feel in one part of your body. Once you point to the number, times that number by 10 to get your estimated heart rate during cardio exercise.
References
- "The NSCA's Essentials of Personal Training: Human Kinetics," 1st Ed.; R. Earle and T. Baechle; 2003
- "International Journal of Sports Physiology Performance"; Monitoring Different Types of Resistance Training Using Session Rating of Perceived Exertion; F. Singh, C. Foster, D. Tod and M. McGuigan; 2007
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