Monitor Your Heart Rate When You Exercise

When you’re exercising, it’s important to keep track of your heart rate so that you can make sure you’re working out in a range that is maximizing your calorie-burning potential. If you’re not working out on a machine that keeps track of your rate, you can either use a heart rate monitor or two of your fingers.

If you’re measuring manually, place two fingers gently just below the top of the jaw on the side of your neck over your carotid artery or over the radial artery located just where your wrist bends. Count for 15 seconds, then multiply the number of beats you felt by 4 to estimate your beats per minute (bpm). If you’re doing this when you’re at rest, this number represents your approximate resting heart rate.

If you prefer to have a monitor keep track of your heart rate – which is, admittedly, easier when you’re in the middle of a workout – find a heart monitor that includes a strap that goes around your chest and a watch-like device that will allow you to easily read the results.

Determine Your Heart-Rate Zone

To estimate what your heart rate or pulse should be when you exercise, use this formula:

Subtract your age from 220. For example: If you are forty years old, then the answer is 180. This number is your estimated maximum heart rate in beats per minute.

Now, multiply that number (e.g., 180) by .65 and .85. The two numbers (117 and 153) tell you the range in which your heart rate should be during exercise.

You should spend the majority of your exercise time with your heart rate in the lower part of the range, reaching the higher part of the range only during brief interval sessions. If you’ve very fit, you can use a slightly different formula to determine the range of your heart rate during exercise. As a first step, subtract your age from 205, and then do the rest of the calculations described.