The easiest and most effective way to design a fitness program which is personalized to you is by basing it on your individual heart rate patterns. If you want to exercise effectively and prevent injury, you need to understand certain basic terms and concepts surrounding how your own heart reacts to stress.
Understanding your own heart rate, your maximum heart rate, your anaerobic thresholds, and your resting rate is pretty much fundamental for beginning any sort of serious exercise program. If you want a program that is tailored to you and not someone else, base it on your heart rate patterns.
Heart rate refers to the speed at which your heart pumps blood. It is measured in beats per minute (bpm). As your body requires more blood your heart pumps faster. However, it also pumps faster when you are stressed, sick or your system is ineffective, so be wary of always pushing yourself hard.
The measure of your baseline health and fitness is your resting heart rate. This shows how hard your heart has to work just in order to maintain your body without any extra demands on it. One of the most important reasons to exercise is to train your body to be able to do more with less effort. As such, generally speaking, as you get fitter, your resting heart rate will go down. Your heart will be able to pump more blood with less effort.
Because of this, it is important to know your resting heart rate at the beginning of a new fitness program, so that you will be able to see how much your fitness improves and current fitness levels.
It is very simple to measure your resting heart rate. All you need is a clock that counts seconds. The best time to take your resting heart rate is as soon as you wake up, before you have gotten out of bed. However, it can also be taken after any extended period of lying down with no movement, such as watching TV.
Find your pulse either at your radial artery on your wrist just below your thumb or at your carotid artery in your neck either side of your throat. Make sure you are using just your index and middle finger to find the pulse, as your thumb has a slight pulse of its own and can confuse the counting.
Now, time yourself and count how many times it pulses in ten seconds, starting by counting 'zero'. Then times this by 6 and you have your resting heart rate in beats per minutes. (You can also count for 30 seconds and times it by 2, if you feel this is more accurate, or count for the full 60 seconds, as with only a 10 second timeframe, miss-counting by one can have a much larger effect.)
A general guide is that a resting heart rate below 60 means you are very fit. 60-80 is average, and 81-100 is high but still okay. If your resting heart rate is consistently over 101bpm, this is not very good and you should think about seeing your doctor.
It is best to record your heart rate every morning for a week to try and get an average as its quite easy to have an unusual reading, such as waking up after a nightmare, or falling back asleep as you count.
Finally, if you are a serious athlete, or are starting a new program which will push you hard, you should be taking your resting heart rate every morning before getting up to work out. The reason for this is that generally your resting heart rate will increase around 10bpm if your body is trying to fight illness or is overtrained. If you are registering higher than usual heart rates, you need to think about having an easier training session that day.
Understanding your own heart rate, your maximum heart rate, your anaerobic thresholds, and your resting rate is pretty much fundamental for beginning any sort of serious exercise program. If you want a program that is tailored to you and not someone else, base it on your heart rate patterns.
Heart rate refers to the speed at which your heart pumps blood. It is measured in beats per minute (bpm). As your body requires more blood your heart pumps faster. However, it also pumps faster when you are stressed, sick or your system is ineffective, so be wary of always pushing yourself hard.
The measure of your baseline health and fitness is your resting heart rate. This shows how hard your heart has to work just in order to maintain your body without any extra demands on it. One of the most important reasons to exercise is to train your body to be able to do more with less effort. As such, generally speaking, as you get fitter, your resting heart rate will go down. Your heart will be able to pump more blood with less effort.
Because of this, it is important to know your resting heart rate at the beginning of a new fitness program, so that you will be able to see how much your fitness improves and current fitness levels.
It is very simple to measure your resting heart rate. All you need is a clock that counts seconds. The best time to take your resting heart rate is as soon as you wake up, before you have gotten out of bed. However, it can also be taken after any extended period of lying down with no movement, such as watching TV.
Find your pulse either at your radial artery on your wrist just below your thumb or at your carotid artery in your neck either side of your throat. Make sure you are using just your index and middle finger to find the pulse, as your thumb has a slight pulse of its own and can confuse the counting.
Now, time yourself and count how many times it pulses in ten seconds, starting by counting 'zero'. Then times this by 6 and you have your resting heart rate in beats per minutes. (You can also count for 30 seconds and times it by 2, if you feel this is more accurate, or count for the full 60 seconds, as with only a 10 second timeframe, miss-counting by one can have a much larger effect.)
A general guide is that a resting heart rate below 60 means you are very fit. 60-80 is average, and 81-100 is high but still okay. If your resting heart rate is consistently over 101bpm, this is not very good and you should think about seeing your doctor.
It is best to record your heart rate every morning for a week to try and get an average as its quite easy to have an unusual reading, such as waking up after a nightmare, or falling back asleep as you count.
Finally, if you are a serious athlete, or are starting a new program which will push you hard, you should be taking your resting heart rate every morning before getting up to work out. The reason for this is that generally your resting heart rate will increase around 10bpm if your body is trying to fight illness or is overtrained. If you are registering higher than usual heart rates, you need to think about having an easier training session that day.
About the Author:
Now that you know about resting heart rate, find out how to calculate your maximum heart rate. For more fitness advice and programs, see my blog at http://fitbuster.blogspot.com.au - Testing the best and worst of fitness programs and fads.
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