Here Is The Single Best Way To Improve Your Fitness
By:
Measuring the number of times your heart beats per minute is essential to improving your fitness. The areas you really want to measure and improve in are your heart rate at rest and the speed with which it recovers from sustained activity. This is because a stronger heart pumps more blood to your body per beat than a weaker heart and requires fewer beats per minute. A corresponding drop in the resting heart rate can result from consistent aerobic exercise.
Like any muscle, the heart gets stronger as you exercise it. There are two types of workouts: aerobic and anaerobic. An aerobic workout consists of large groups of your body's muscles being used over a longer period of time in a steady state of exertion. An anaerobic workout consists of small groups of your body's muscles being used over a short period of time at a high level of exertion.
In either type of workout your muscles will demand oxygen. The harder you workout the more oxygen your muscles require. This makes the heart the engine driving the car as it supplies this vital fuel to the body.
To know how the engine is running we need an RPM gauge and this is precisely the function a good heart rate monitor watch performs. By utilizing a heart rate monitor watch you will always know if you are training in the correct zone.
There are four basic measurements a heart rate monitor watch will give you that will help improve your fitness.
Resting heart rate
Your heart rate at rest occurs when you are at rest and under no stress, like after an evening of sleep and upon waking. Measure this when you have been at rest and are feeling no outside stresses.
Most men will have a resting heart rate between 60 and 80, while a well-conditioned athlete might be at 40 beats per minute. For women 70 to 90 is the range. A highly trained athlete can have beats per minute in the 40's at rest. Gradually measuring improvement of the resting heart rate can tell you whether to go easy or hard on a given day depending upon your recovery.
Peak or max heart rate
The maximum is an important number, but not to measure, as it represents the maximum amount of time in a minute your heart can beat. The maximum heart rate should not be attempted but rather calculated using the following formula. the fitness community has developed a baseline formula to measure your maximum heart rate.
Subtract your age from the number 220. A 60 year-old would have a maximum heart rate of 160 beats per minute. This measurement is not perfect but it is a good approximation.
Target zone heart rate
Your zone heart rate range is a range of beats per minute that you attempt to stay within for your workout. A heart rate monitor watch with beeper alarms is really good for this because it alerts you when you have gone outside your zone range of 50% to 80% of max heart rate. The bands of this range can be limited further to meet the specific needs of each individual for where they are within their exercise program - from beginner to professional.
Those new to exercise should start at 50% to 70% of their maximum heart rate. When working out in a tighter range of 10 percentage points it is very useful to have an alarm set up to notify you when you are outside the zone. It's like having a personal trainer coaching you through the workout.
Exceptionally fit athletes will operate at 70 to 80 percent for long periods of time but if you aren't Lance Armstrong yet, then stick to the lower ranges. Of course such athletes who have established a huge base of fitness, likely workout year round and have been doing so for several years so it only makes sense that they have a lower resting pulse and a heart that is sufficiently strong to take these higher levels of sustained effort.
Recovery heart rate
How quickly does your heart rate drop when you have completed a prolonged period of exercise? This best explains the concept of recovery heart rate. A heart rate monitor watch will enable you to take a pre-workout measurement. Remember this number and add 20 to it. During your exercise routine pause every 20 minutes to half-hour and see how fast your heart recovers to 20 beats over your pre-workout heart rate by measuring the speed of recovery with your heart rate monitor watch.
What you will notice is that as your fitness improves your heart will recover more quickly from a sustained effort. You'll want to make sure to make this ritual a regular part of your workout program as it is an important measure of your progress. The speed of heart rate recovery cannot be emphasized enough as it is perhaps the single best measure of fitness because better conditioned hearts recover more quickly. Once you recover then resume your workout and repeat this process several times.
A heart rate monitor watch and the correct way to use it
Using a heart rate monitor is very simple. Heart rate monitor watches come in dozens of shapes, sizes and features. Just like an electrocardiogram (ECG) the transmitter detects electrical activity. As the watches become more advanced they typically show more than just a heart rate with features like beepers, GPS, and a host of others.
For heart rate monitor watches that require no strap and allow you to measure your heart rate via sensors, checkout Mio and Pro-Form. While you can't get your heart rate on the fly with these types of systems they still work quite well for the critical recovery measures or resting heart rate measures, but they lack the capability to give you target zone feedback during your exercise. The upside is not having a strap that feels uncomfortable and quite frankly many women prefer this.
The choices of heart rate watches are much broader than they were 5 years ago. You can go real basic and just get a continuous display of your pulse. Other features can include pre-programmed workouts, countdown timer, calories burned and more.
I'd strongly recommend that you get one of the more advanced watches because they contain features that automatically give feedback, like alarm beepers for your target zone, that immediately reinforces the likelihood that you will stay in your most effective range of heart rate. Many heart rate monitor watches also allow you to download your workout heart rates from the watch to a computer so you can visually see your rate of improvement over time.
fitness heart rate
About the Author: Heartratewatchcompany.com offers products on Heart Rate Monitor Watch, Heart Rate Monitor, Bike Computer, GPS Heart Rate Watch and Strapless Heart Rate Monitor Watch.