Heart Rates Flashcards
What Is A Heart Rate?
Your heart rate is the number of times your heart beats in a minute. Like any other muscles, your heart needs physical activity to stay strong and healthy. The stronger your heart, the less times it needs to beat per minute to circulate the blood in your body! Taking your pulse during physical activity allows you to measure the intensity of your exercise. Monitoring heart rates is part of every class.
How Do I Take My Heart Rate?
As your heart pumps blood through your body, you can feel a pulsing in some of the blood vessels close to the skin’s surface, such as in your wrist and neck. Press your index and middle finger lightly on these areas to feel this pulsing. Don’t use your thumb – it has a pulse of its own.
- Wrist: Place these two fingers on your wrist, just below the base of the thumb.
- Neck: Place these two fingers on your lower neck on either side of your windpipe.
- Resting Heart Rate
The number of heart beats per minute when you are at complete rest.
Your resting heart rate indicates your basic fitness level. The more well-conditioned your body, the less effort and fewer beats per minute it takes your heart to pump blood to your body at rest. A person in good aerobic condition usually has a lower Resting Heart Rate than a person in poor aerobic condition.
How Do I Take My Resting Heart Rate?
It is best to take your resting heart rate first thing in the morning before getting out of bed. Find your pulse and count for one whole minute. Take this measurement for five consecutive days and find the average. This is your actual resting heart rate.
- Exercise Heart Rate
The heart rate you measure during your aerobic activity.
It tells how hard you are working your heart during exercise. As the aerobic activities become more vigorous and more oxygen is required, the heart increases its rate of beating to supply oxygen to the muscles. You should keep your heart rate in your Target Heart Rate Zone while exercising. This is a range that defines the upper and lower limits of training intensities and ensures that you are exercising at a safe but effective level. To improve your cardiovascular fitness, you must maintain your heart rate between 65-90% of Maximum Heart Rate.
How Do I Calculate My Target Heart Rate Zone?
Step 1: Determine your Maximum Heart Rate (MHR): 220 – (your age) = _________ beats/min. The MHR is the highest number of times your heart can theoretically contract in one minute.
Step 2: Multiply your MHR by 65% and by 90%, to determine your target heart zone. Lower training zone: MHR x 0.65 = \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ beats/min Upper training zone: MHR x 0.90 = \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ beats /min
Example for an 18 year old: Maximum Heart Rate: 220-18 = 202 beats /min
Lower training zone:202 x 0.65 = 131.3 beats/ min
Upper training zone:202 x 0.90 = 181.8 beats / min
The target heart rate zone is 131-182 beats /min
How Do I Take My Exercise Heart Rate?
The Exercise Heart Rate is counted for 6 seconds during or immediately after each cardiovascular workout. Adding a zero to this number (i.e., multiplying by 10) gives the beats per minute (bpm). The Exercise Heart Rate drops off very quickly after an activity, so it is important to measure it right away.
*Note that heart rates can be counted for: 6sec x 10, 10sec x 6 or 15sec x 4.
- Recovery Heart Rate
The heart rate you measure 1 minute after your aerobic activity (into your cool-down period) One minute after you stop exercising and cooled down, take your pulse for 15 seconds. Then multiply that number by 4 to get your rate per minute. The drop in heart rate over the first minute after exercise is called the recovery index and is an excellent tool to track your fitness.
How Do I Calculate My Recovery Index?
Take your heart rate immediately after your aerobic exercise (Post Exercise Heart Rate) and subtract it by your recovery heart rate (Heart Rate 1 minute later).
Post Exercise Heart Rate – Recovery Heart Rate = Recovery Index.
What does your recovery index indicate?
- A drop of < 20 beats indicates poor fitness.
- A drop of 25-45 beats indicates good fitness.
- A drop of > 50-60 beats indicates excellent shape.
What Factors Can Influence My Heart Rate?
Your heart rate can change frequently throughout the day. Here are some factors that increase your HR:
- Being dehydrated
- Caffeine
- Stress and Anxiety
- Digesting food
- Warm temperatures
- Lack of Sleep
- Illness
- Exercise
- Some medications
Why Is It Important To Take My Heart Rates?
To Stay Safe:
If your Exercise Heart Rate is above your target heart rate zone, you should slow down.
To Be Effective: If your Exercise Heart Rate is below your target heart zone, then you must move more vigorously to get more aerobic benefit from your workout. You must stay in your Target Heart Rate Zone for at least 20 to 30 continuous minutes to reap benefits from the aerobic workout.
To Monitor And Measure My Cardiovascular Progress:
You can periodically compare your exercise heart rate at a given exercise level. As your cardiovascular fitness increases, your exercise heart rate at the same work level should decrease. (For example, during the first month of training, the elliptical cross trainer at level 3 may raise your heart rate to 150 beats per minute. During the second month of training, this same workout may only elevate your heart rate to 140 beats per minute. Hence, your heart is becoming stronger and more efficient.)
You can also periodically monitor your resting heart rate. Your resting heart rate typically goes down as your cardiovascular strength improves. A reduction in your resting heart rate indicates an effective cardiovascular training program.
Is There Another Way To Measure My Intensity?
Yes, you can use your Perceived Rate of Exertion: how hard you feel your body is working during exercise. Stopping every so often during a workout to take heart rates isn’t always convenient. In time, you will recognize the feeling associated with the required intensity. When this happens, you will be able to use a perceived rate of exertion scale (PRE). The scale is based on the physical sensations a person experiences during physical activity, including increased heart rate, increased respiration or breathing rate, increased sweating, and muscle fatigue. Although this is a subjective measure, a person’s exertion rating may provide a fairly good estimate of the actual heart rate during physical activity
To use the scale, identify the feelings you experience when you reach different heart rates. Then you can estimate your intensity based on the signals your body is sending
