What is the formula for calculating your heart rate.
I recently started working out again after a year’s absence and I noticed the machine has you enter your heart rate to burn fat or to strengthen cardio.
What are the formulas?
Also I have medium asthma does that effect the formula?
Count beats for 15 seconds. Multiply by 4.
If you’re talking about that max rate for safe cardio effect, try subtracting your age from 220 and taking 70% of that.
You should be the best judge of how your asthma affects you.
Most newer cardio machines have heart rate monitors built in. But they usually require a thin device strapped to your chest under your shirt. Here’s what it looks like.
Some (usually older) cardio machines have metal plates on the hand grips rather than using the chest device. But they require you to keep a solid grip which can become uncomfortable for long sessions.
Besides displaying your heart rate, the cardio machine also can use it in its programs. Say you select the fat burn program, it changes the resistance so that your heart rate stays within the fat burn regime, which is lower than the cardio regime.
> But they require you to keep a solid grip which can become uncomfortable for long sessions.
Only for a few seconds until it displays your heart rate (unless of course you want the number to continually update).
I’ve found a lot of the HR monitors are inaccurate once the HR gets high. I had one of the those that used a chest strap & wrist monitor, & found that it measured very close to what my blood pressure meter said my pulse was, when I was just sitting. I used it on the treadmill a few times, & the number went up as I’d expect as my speed increased, but when I was running at 6 mph, the HR read over 250, which is impossible. Some of the built-in ones on the treadmill refuse to work above a certain speed; instead of the HR, they display a message like “It’s not safe to hold the grips while running.”
The standard formula for computing your maximum heart rate is to subtract your age from 220. It is recommended that you work out to achieve a HR of 60% to 80% of your MHR, to achieve any aerobic effect. An easy work-out at 60% and a hard work-out at 80%. Of course, many individuals who compete in athletic events, such as running and swimming, will work out at higher rates for short periods of time (interval training).
In your case that formula will work, since you haven’t worked out in a while. However, for fit people the formula does not work. Other formulas have been proposed for fit people, but the only accurate way to determine your MHR is to take a maximum stress test. Several years ago, when I was doing running intervals, I would get my heart rate up to 200, and I was around 50+ years old.
Check out the following article from Runner’s World:
http://www.runnersworld.com/training/oahrtrat.html
Another article on this, by Hal Higdon, is at:
http://www.newrunner.com/step/heart.html
Most of the calculations (220 - age, etc.) work for about 65% of the population. About 20% will have larger hearts that beat slower than average, so their Target Heart Rate is lower. And 15% have smaller hearts, beating faster, with much faster THR.
For example, I was at a running camp with a woman who, at an easy run – 60% of Max Heart Rate – was close to 200 bpm.
The best way to determine what is right for you, other than a doctor supervised stress test, is to do several runs using a heart rate monitor. An easy run that you can sustain is generally around 60% MHR. The point at which it becomes difficult to talk except in short sentences is around 75%. (A coach explained this as going from Faulkner to Hemmingway sentences.)
What about to lose weight. I read in Men’s Health their is a heart rate zone to be in to strengthen your heart and one to lose weight.
Of course you would want to do that. But right now I am more interested in losing weight.
I don’t think there is a heart zone rate to lose weight. Weight loss is a combination of calories in minus calories expended (a negative number to lose weight). Hence, there are only two factors in losing weight: Exercise more and eat less. Your heart rate is immaterial. If it takes you an hour to walk a mile, you still have expended the same amount of work as one who walks a mile in 10 minutes. In fact, you expend a little more calories for being so inefficient.
A prior poster had some links to the web concerning heart rates, and I didn’t bother to reply since it’s not important. But while I’m here, one of those sites contains misleading, if not erroneous info. People with higher MHR do not necessarily have a higher resting HR. When I got my HR up to over 200, my resting HR was around 40. It is not mere circumstance that one can reach a higher heart rate and/or that one has a lower resting HR. It is conditioning.