How to Calculate Resting & Maximum Heart Rate

by Samantha
(Portland)

How to calculate resting & maximum heart rates, and why they are important.
If you're clever you can utilize your heart rate to achieve an optimal workout, but many people don't even know what theirs is, or how to measure it. So let's clarify this important tool to clever fitness.

Resting, Exercise and Maximum Heart Rates

These three Heart rates need to be considered when training to lose weight and / or get fit.

The Resting HR is when you are at your most relaxed state such as sleep. The fitter you become, and the stronger and healthier your heart and lungs the lower your resting heart rate will become. This is because the heart will be able to pump more blood (the stroke volume) throughout the body with less effort.

The lungs are able to utilize more oxygen (maximum oxygen uptake) with less effort. So more blood and oxygen to the muscles means better endurance. And More oxygen in the blood also keeps the lactic acid down - good for a prolonged aerobic workout.

A normal Resting Heart Rate can be as low as 40 Beats Per Minute to as high as 100 BPM. 70 Beats per minute is average for a man, and 75 BPM is average for a woman.

The Resting Heart Rate is used as a starting point to improve your cardiovascular fitness, obviously you want to decrease it.
The best time to measure your Resting Heart Rate is first thing in the morning. Your wrist is a good place to measure the palpations - just below the base of your thumb. Use your fingers and not your thumb as it has a pulse of its own! Count the beats for a minute to get the number of BPM.

The Exercise Heart Rate is the heart rate during sustained exercise. The target is to keep your heart rate within your Target Heart Rate Range or Zone (normally between 75% to 85% of your Maximum Heart Rate.

The Maximum Heart Rate is just what it is, and certainly you never want to be at 100% of your Max Heart Rate unless your name is Mr Lance Armstrong. The maximum heart rate is usually measured as 220 - your age. It's not perfect, but good enough for determining your target heart zone.

It's probably more convenient to measure the Exercise Pulse Rate at the larger Carotid Artery at the side of your neck (beside the larynx) during exercise.
To find it slide your index and middle fingers down the base of your ear lobe down to the side of your throat and apply very light pressure.

Hope that helps,
keep up the great info on the site,
Cheers,
Samantha