# Increasing Heart Rate Without Physical Exertion: Exercise or Not?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/increasing-heart-rate-without-physical-exertion-exercise-or-not/177897
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [May 27, 2003, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/increasing-heart-rate-without-physical-exertion-exercise-or-not/177897 "2003-05-27T23:41:57Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)
#### Post date: [May 27, 2003, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/increasing-heart-rate-without-physical-exertion-exercise-or-not/177897/1 "2003-05-27T23:41:57Z")
Suppose I participate in some activity that increases my heart rate to the upper 140’s but that doesn’t involve any physical exertion on my part (for example: riding an exciting roller coaster, watching a scary movie, listening to a pumpin’ overture, etc.). If I were to keep up this activity, and thus my heart rate, for 30 minutes, would that be as beneficial as a 30-minute workout on a treadmill?
DISCLAIMER: This is just hypothetical; I don’t plan to replace my workout with Beethoven.
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### Author:  [@Winsling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Winsling)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2003, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/increasing-heart-rate-without-physical-exertion-exercise-or-not/177897/2 "2003-05-28T00:42:55Z")
Cecil has [this](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_273.html) to say about getting the heart pumping via caffine. In short, you aren’t consuming much more oxygen, and that’s the real metric you want. Heart rate is just an approximation when you don’t have a convenient machine.
Hal
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### Author:  [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)
#### Post date: [May 28, 2003, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/increasing-heart-rate-without-physical-exertion-exercise-or-not/177897/3 "2003-05-28T00:47:29Z")
Firstly, I don’t think watching scary movie or riding a roller coaster would get your heart rate up that high for that long. I’m not sure anything but vigorous excersize can elevate your heart rate to 140 or so for any useful length of time.
if you could, you’d exercise your heart (which is a muscle) but nothing else. You would not grow more muscle anywhere else nor would you inprove the blood circualation in other parts of your body.