Get To Know Your Ideal Exercise Heart Rate
In order to tell you’re working hard enough, you’re going to have to check with an expert, your heart.
A simple calculation will tell you your approximate maximum beats per minute while exercising.
220 minus your age
During a workout, measure your pulse with your fingertips for 6 seconds, then multiply by 10 to get beats per minute. Or buy a heart-rate monitor and skip the math. Either way, if you train at 60% to 90% of your max, you’re probably getting good results from your workout.
But it makes a difference how you calculate your percentages; the standard equation isn’t practically accurate. The 220-minus-your-age figure could be off your real maximum by as much as 12 beats per minute in either direction.
A more dependable method, and one’s that correspondingly more labor-intensive, is measuring you heart-rate reserve. This formula includes you resting heart rate (rhr), a key indicator of your fitness level. To measure rhr, take your pulse as soon as you wake up in the morning. Just to make it even complicated, you should probably measure your rhr 3 consecutive mornings and take the average. A lot of factors - stress, a hard workout the day before, incredibly great sex - can temporarily elevate it.
Let’s say you’re a reasonably fit 28 year old guy with a rhr of 80. To calculate you heart rate reserve, subtract your age from your predicted maximum heart rate
220 minus 28 = 192
Subtract your rhr from that figure.
192 minus 80 = 112
Multiply that number by the top intensity at which you might train.
112 x 85% = 92
Add your resting heart rate.
92 + 80 = 172 beats per minute at 85% of maximum intensity
Standard heart-rate calculations would have told you 85% of maximum effort was 160 beats per minute, or 12 fewer!
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