Coupled with a fitness tracker and an app that can track your progress, you can gain valuable insight into your cardiovascular fitness and adjust your workouts to optimize them by observing your heart rate. So, how can you use your heart rate to achieve your fitness goals? First, you should understand what your heart rate can tell you about your current level of fitness.
Your Resting Heart Rate
A resting heart rate is your heart rate when you are relaxing, such as lying down awake and not after recently exerting yourself. A typical resting heart rate for an adult is between 60 and 80 beats per minute (bpm). A higher resting heart rate may suggest your heart is working harder than it should, which could be due to poor fitness, stress, dehydration, or other health issues. On the other hand, it is not unusual for people who regularly exercise to have a resting heart rate below 50 bpm.
Regardless, everyone’s heart rate is different, and no ideal resting heart rate exists. Generally speaking, a lower resting heart rate usually means you’re more fit. However, you should see a doctor if you have a low resting heart rate and experience symptoms such as fatigue, dizziness, or weakness.
Your Maximum Heart Rate
In order to utilize your heart rate to improve your fitness, you have to know your maximum heart rate, which is roughly the number of beats the heart makes in a minute under its maximum workload.
There are several formulas you can use to calculate your maximum heart rate, although the most common formulas do not account for gender. In fact, a study at Northwestern University found that the standard formulas to determine the maximum heart rate for women are too high. Regardless, these formulas are good enough to give a general idea of your maximum heart rate.
| 220 – Age | The most common maximum heart rate formula |
| 207 – (0.7 x Age) | A more precise formula for those over 40 |
| 211 – (0.64 x Age) | A slightly more precise formula for active people |
| 206 – (0.88 x Age) | Northwestern University’s formula for women |
Heart Rate Variability
Heart rate variability (HRV) can provide insight into whether you’re recovering from an illness, injury, or exercise. It can also track your levels of physical and emotional stress. It may even be a predictor of cardiac failure.
You may have a heart rate of 60 beats per minute. However, that doesn’t mean it beats exactly one beat every second. Instead, your heart beats in a slightly irregular, perfectly normal pattern. Heart Rate Variability measures the time between your heartbeats. Generally speaking, a higher heart rate variability is associated with better fitness, cardiovascular health, and lower stress levels.
Many fitness trackers can estimate your normal heart rate variability. This can be useful since a normal or higher-than-normal number may indicate you’ve recovered from previous workouts or illness and are ready for more. On the other hand, a lower-than-average HRV could suggest that you still need more time to recover.
Heart rate variability is easy to measure using a chest strap or fitness tracker from companies such as Fitbit, Polar, and Garmin. In fact, it’s a standard feature on most newer fitness trackers, making it easier to reference when monitoring your progress.
Your Heart Rate During Exercise
Depending on your fitness goals, you can adjust your heart rate by increasing or decreasing your effort while exercising. Training within a specific target heart rate can optimize different workouts.
The CDC recommends at least 150 minutes of moderate or 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic activity weekly. On two or more of those days, you should also engage in muscle-strengthening activities with major muscle groups.
But what are the differences between moderate and vigorous activity? Moderate activity makes you breathe harder than usual, but you can still carry on a conversation. When measured, it’s roughly between 50% and 70% of your maximum heart rate. Exercising at this target heart rate will improve your overall fitness and endurance.
Vigorous activity is more taxing, and you’ll likely can’t say more than a couple of words at a time. Your heart rate is between 70% and 85% of your maximum heart rate. The difference is brisk walking compared to running. Exercising at this target heart rate will enhance your aerobic capabilities and overall cardiovascular fitness.
As your fitness improves, you may notice your workouts are easier and that your heart rate is lower while exercising. That means you’re making progress. It also means you’ll need to increase your workload to raise your heart rate.
Tracking Your Progress
Tracking your progress can give you a birdseye view of all your efforts. Not only will you see your progress, but you may also see early indicators of trouble. This can be helpful because you can adjust your workouts sooner rather than later. In fact, it can help you reach your goals faster.
One of the easiest ways to track your progress is with an app. You may think an app is just something else you must manage. Changing your habits and shifting into a fitness mindset is already hard enough. However, a fitness tracker and other smart devices can update some apps automatically, making tracking your workouts, sleep, heart rate variability, stress levels, and weight trivial. As a result, you can monitor your progress and look for signs of overtraining, burnout, or fatigue. As a result, you keep moving in the right direction.
The Takeaway
Your heart rate can be a good indicator of your fitness level. Generally, a lower resting heart rate and higher heart rate variability indicate better cardiovascular health for adults. By managing your heart rate while you exercise, you can raise it to get enough moderate and vigorous activity to improve your overall fitness level. Tracking your heart rate and exercise routine can show improvements over time and allow you to adjust your workouts to keep you moving toward your goals.
FitTrend’s mission is to help you along your self-improvement journey, promote an active lifestyle, and help you achieve your goals. Our journal can help you track your activities and workouts. Also, FitTrend allows you to connect certain smartwatches and trackers to your account to make it easier for you to update your journal automatically. Create your account today and start using FitTrend for free!
Disclaimer: No content on this site should ever be used as a substitute for direct medical advice from your doctor or other qualified clinician.
