Heart Rate

Your Target Heart Rate

Your heart rate is the number of times your heart contracts within one minute. Your target heart rate is the number of times your heart should contract per minute throughout your workout. To find your target heart rate, all you need to do is take your age and subtract it from 220. For women, take your age and subtract it from 226. The end result is your target heart rate. Your target heart rate is the rate at which you want to maintain your heart contractions during a work out. By monitoring your heart rate and keeping it within your target rate, you’ll be able to get the most out of your workout. If you don’t watch your heart rate and you work out too hard, you could injure yourself and cause serious damage to your body. On the other hand, if you don’t monitor your heart rate, you could end up not exercising hard enough, and that’s just a waste of time. If you want to get the most out of your workout, find out your target heart rate and monitor it.

How to Monitor Your Heart Rate

When you work out, there are a few ways to monitor your heart rate. Some higher-end exercise bikes and treadmills have built-in heart rate monitors. These higher-end machines ask you to enter in your age and weight into the machine’s processor and through sensors built into the handle bars, the machine will monitor your heart rate and let you know if you’re maintaing or over-shooting your target heart rate.

But not all exercise machines have built in heart rate monitors. Some just have the basic components necessary to function. But regardless of whether or not your exercise equipment has integrated heart rate monitors, you still need to monitor your heart rate. That’s why you need a personal heart rate monitor.

A personal heart rate monitor is a device that you attach to your body to monitor your heart rate during a workout. It consists of a chest belt and a receiver. The chest belt has electrodes that make contact with your skin to monitor the electrical voltages in your heart. When your heart rate is detected by the chest belt, a radio signal is sent to the receiver, normally worn on the wrist and resembles a wrist watch. The receiver receives the signal and determines your current heart rate. Heart rate monitors are great for runners and bicyclists who would rather exercise outdoors, but still want to be able to monitor their heart rate.

What Effects Your Heart Rate

Poor health affects your heart rate. The target heart rate you establish based on your age is also based on normal health conditions. However, if you’re overweight, a heavy smoker, abuse illegal and over-the-counter narcotics, or eat an unhealthy diet, your heart and the rate at which it contracts will be affected. Heart disease plagues millions of people every year and is one of the leading causes of death. If you want to keep your heart healthy, stop smoking, don’t abuse drugs, eat a balanced diet, and lower your weight.