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.
Your heart rate, as might be obvious, is the speed at which your heart is pumping. When your muscles require more blood, your heart pumps faster, when you are at rest, your heart pumps slower. However, a higher heart rate doesn't always mean you are doing good things to your body. Your heart also pumps faster when it is stressed, sick, or working very inefficiently.
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.
Therefore, it is important to measure at the beginning of a program what your current resting heart rate is, which lets you know how fit you are now, and gives you a basis to see if you are improving later.
Working out your resting heart rate is super easy and needs only a clock that counts seconds. It's best to take your resting heart rate just after waking up, but any time you have been lying still and not moving for a period of time will work (this is one of the few times I'm going to recommend watching TV, so enjoy it.)
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.)
It is suggested that: 60 or below beats per minute: = a fit athlete. 60- 80 bpm = average. 81-100 bpm = is high, but ok. 101 bpm = not so good, 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.
Further, if you are serious about a new exercise program, particularly if you are an athlete, it is highly recommended that you take your resting heart rate every single morning. The major reason for this is that your resting heart rate will generally go up about 10 bpm if your body is starting to fight an illness, and is a good indicator that you should cut down on your training until it returns to normal. This is an excellent way to avoid over-training.
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.
Your heart rate, as might be obvious, is the speed at which your heart is pumping. When your muscles require more blood, your heart pumps faster, when you are at rest, your heart pumps slower. However, a higher heart rate doesn't always mean you are doing good things to your body. Your heart also pumps faster when it is stressed, sick, or working very inefficiently.
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.
Therefore, it is important to measure at the beginning of a program what your current resting heart rate is, which lets you know how fit you are now, and gives you a basis to see if you are improving later.
Working out your resting heart rate is super easy and needs only a clock that counts seconds. It's best to take your resting heart rate just after waking up, but any time you have been lying still and not moving for a period of time will work (this is one of the few times I'm going to recommend watching TV, so enjoy it.)
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.)
It is suggested that: 60 or below beats per minute: = a fit athlete. 60- 80 bpm = average. 81-100 bpm = is high, but ok. 101 bpm = not so good, 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.
Further, if you are serious about a new exercise program, particularly if you are an athlete, it is highly recommended that you take your resting heart rate every single morning. The major reason for this is that your resting heart rate will generally go up about 10 bpm if your body is starting to fight an illness, and is a good indicator that you should cut down on your training until it returns to normal. This is an excellent way to avoid over-training.
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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