Get Stronger, Better, Faster – Know Your Heart Rate When Exercising

I’ve talked to my wife occasionally about the science between your heart rate when exercising and different levels of fitness.  But this has always been an abstract discussion.  No more.

This past Christmas, my wife got me a Garmin Forerunner 50.  Mine came with a heart rate monitor, but you can also get them with a shoe fob and bike accessory to measure distance (by GPS) and cadence.  Over the last month, I’ve started putting this to work.

Why Worry About Your Heart Rate When Exercising?

I suspect most of the readers know the basic idea behind heart rate and exercise intensity level.  The theory goes that as exercise intensity increases, your body will respond with an increased heart rate.  This happens in due to increasing oxygen demand.  By knowing your maximum heart rate, you can vary your exercise intensity based on your workout goals.

I’ll start by admitting that I’ve always been lukewarm on the subject of monitoring my heart rate when exercising.  After all, why bother?  My attitude has always been that if I’m not exercising hard enough, I’ll know it and push the intensity up.  If I’m exercising too hard, I’ll know it and back off.  Simple, right?

But now that I’ve put this new toy to use, I’ve become a convert.  I’ve been using it for about a month now, and I’ve learned a few things about my workouts.  In particular, I’ve gotten an idea of how different activities can impact my heart rate, and how I can make more efficient use of my time during the limited workouts I have available.

The following is an example of a typical 30-minute run for me.  You can see how my heart rate ramps up rather quickly and holds steady at around 173 beats per minute (bpm) for the duration of the run.  At the end of the run, there’s a rapid taper back to130 bpm during the recovery period.  My average heart rate for the workout was 163 bpm.

By contrast, take a look at a typical graph for a strength training session.  My max heart rate for the workout was 158 bpm, with an average of 122 bpm.  One interesting thing is how my heart rate varied more over the course of the activity.  But, I definitely never achieved the same overall intensity that the run provided.

I suspect that most of us would say that’s not a surprise.  Myself included.  It’s rather intuitive that a sustained run would provide a harder aerobic workout than that same amount of time in the gym.

Since one of my mantras is to be as efficient as possible with my workouts, I’m hoping to use this to improve in that area.  Over the next several weeks, I’m going to put together a series to show how I’ve started using this new tool to improve my workout sessions.