Learn to Exercise Right

February 4th, 2012Exercise0 comments

Most people walk a half an hour in their neighborhood or run on a treadmill for the recommended amount of time and feel as though they have properly exercised their heart. While they may feel better about their heart health, they may or may not have exercised their heart properly.

According to leading cardiologists, you need to make an effort to reach your target heart rate when you do aerobic exercise and you need to stay in your target heart rate for a period of time in order to get the best cardiac or heart effect from that exercise.

The target heart rate is defined as the rate your heart must be at in order to work it to the proper level. It is not the maximum heart rate your heart can reach and, in fact, it is not a good idea to get much above the target heart rate or you will put too much stress and strain on the heart, possibly triggering symptoms of nausea, vomiting, shortness of breath or even chest pain.

The target heart rate is the way you pace your workout. When you exercise, you should have an exercise heart rate detector and should watch the monitor until you reach your target heart rate. Stay in the target heart rate until it is time to cool down from the exercise or exercise in your target heart rate for ten or fifteen minutes before dropping down to a lesser heart rate. You can repeat cycles of increasing and decreasing your heart rate over the time of your exercise.

So how do you know what your target heart rate is? The target heart rate actually changes with a person’s age. The older you are the less the target heart rate is going to be. The target heart rate of an older woman of 60 is only about 111-134 beats per minute and the target heart rate of a much younger person of 18 is as high as 140-172. A good way to calculate the target heart rate is to take the number 220 and subtract your age.

If you want to exercise in a moderate way, you should exercise until your heart has reached 50 to 70 percent of the maximum allowable heart rate, which is about 220. Vigorous exercisers should get their heart rate as high as 70 to 85 percent of the maximum heart rate.

According to generally acceptable government guidelines, you should exercise about 150 minutes of exercise that is of a moderate level or more per week. This means that if you keep your workout to about a half hour, you need to exercise four to five times per week.