Heart Rate Training

Let's start with what heart rate is; the number of heart beats per unit of time (usually per minute).
Your heart beat helps exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide into and out of your body. Your heart rate is affected by activity and/or inactivity.

You should be aware of your heart rate in all aspects including:
Resting heart rate
Active resting heart rate
Target heart rate
Maximum heart rate

Resting heart rate is measured at rest, while awake and not after you have recently exerted yourself.
There are many arteries in the body which you can get a reading from at rest. The most popular is the Carotid Artery, located in the neck:

*Place your index and middle fingers on the carotid artery for 15 seconds and multiply how many times you feel a beat in your fingers by 4. This will give you your heart beats per minute.


Average resting heart rate:

Men	Age
	18–25	26–35	36–45	46–55	56–65	65+
Athlete	49–55	49–54	50–56	50–57	51–56	50–55
Excellent	56–61	55–61	57–62	58–63	57–61	56–61
Good	62–65	62–65	63–66	64–67	62–67	62–65
Above Average	66–69	66–70	67–70	68–71	68–71	66–69
Average	70–73	71–74	71–75	72–76	72–75	70–73
Below Average	74–81	75–81	76–82	77–83	76–81	74–79
Poor	82+	82+	83+	84+	82+	80+

Women	Age
	18–25	26–35	36–45	46–55	56–65	65+
Athlete	54–60	54–59	54–59	54–60	54–59	54–59
Excellent	61–65	60–64	60–64	61–65	60–64	60–64
Good	66–69	65–68	65–69	66–69	65–68	65–68
Above Average	70–73	69–72	70–73	70–73	69–73	69–72
Average	74–78	73–76	74–78	74–77	74–77	73–76
Below Average	79–84	77–82	79–84	78–83	78–83	77–84
Poor	85+	83+	85+	84+	84+	85+

^ Resting Heart Rate Table at "Top End Sports - The Sport Science Reports website", date of access 8 July 2012

Active resting heart rate A.K.A. recovery heart rate is also of importance. You will reach this 30-60 seconds after max effort. Optimally your heart rate should decrease by about 12 bpm. This is where your sweet spot is for recovery during exercise. This is different from your normal resting heart rate as it is during or immediately after exertion. 

Next let's discuss maximum heart rate. This is the highest heart rate you can achieve without health complications. The equation used to estimate your max heart rate:

max heart rate = 220 - (your age). 

You should also calculate a target heart rate.  Calculating target heart rate is useful for everyone. Inactive or exercise beginners can use this to make sure they do not over-exert themselves. Once an individual is past a beginning stage, training at this moderate heart rate will not yield many health benefits. But target heart rate can be a good indicator of whether you are pushing yourself enough! Find your target heart rate by multiplying your maximum heart rate (220-your age) by 65%-85%. Working anywhere between 65%-85% will be a great target for average everyday health benefits. 

220-your age(.65 or .85) = target heart rate

Now let's use this information and dial into your fitness training. 

As you should know by now, raising your heart rate to it's maximum and recovering to an active resting heart rate is optimal for health benefits. 

You should be setting up your training routine based on your goals and tracking your progress via heart rate. Interval training is going to help burn body fat and make your body more efficient but ONLY if you are sure to recover AND work to 100% maximum effort. This can be tracked the regular old fashioned way with your fingers or with a Polar heart rate monitor. 

If you're anything like me, the old fashioned way is TOO MUCH MATH! 

That's where a Polar heart rate monitor can come in handy. This past Saturday we had The Polar Guy come into Fit It In. We were able to hook people up to heart rate monitors and track their maximum and recovery heart rates. It was surprising for many to see how well or how difficult it was for them to recover. Even more interesting was comparing how they felt post-workout to their heart rate summary. There were a few who looked and felt over-worked while others felt fantastic! Those who felt "under the weather" did not recover well during the workout. Those who felt fantastic were able to get their heart rate down every time they worked to maximum effort. Being able to show my clients whether they did or did not recover was very helpful. They will now be tracking via the heart rate monitor and making sure they are recovering!

REMEMBER accountability is what gets you results and this tracking method is another form of accountability. 80% of success is showing up and the other 20% of success is knowing what you should be doing and tracking it! 

 20% of anything yields 80% of your best results. This means that 20% of your success is going to be most important, ACCOUNTABILITY! 

I hope this post was useful for you. Another thing I want to stress is that this is not the ONLY form of accountability and tracking you should be using. Read other posts to find out more information!