A person's heart rate can tell a lot about their fitness level.
With the average smartwatch or fitness tracker, people have a wealth of information about their health and fitness, including their heart rate. From heart rate zones to variability, there is a lot of information at our disposal, but sometimes the meaning of all these statistics can go unnoticed by those who are not familiar with them.
Mayo Clinic cardiologist Kathryn Larson recommends that patients first determine their health and fitness goals to identify what they plan to do with the information. She said He New York Times“The discussion changes a lot depending on what that patient or athlete wants to do with that data.”
Experts suggest measuring your heart rate (the number of heartbeats in a minute when you're not exerting yourself) without a device, finding the pulse in your neck or wrist to get the ball rolling. When you place your fingers next to any of them, count the number of heartbeats you can detect in 15 seconds and multiply that number by four; This is how you will find your heart rate.
Meanwhile, your maximum heart rate can be determined by measuring how fast your heart beats during intense exercise, which is where fitness trackers like the Apple Watch come in handy. Throughout the day, devices like these can measure your heart rate through a small light that measures changes in the blood flowing through the vessels in your wrist. A healthy resting heart rate is between 60 and 100 beats per minute; However, people with higher fitness levels, such as athletes, will often have lower resting heart rates than less active people.
With this information, you can determine how you want to target different zones of your heart rate and figure out what you need to do to train them. Dr. Tamanna Singh, a cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic, explained to the outlet, “The best way to really understand the zones is to understand the effort and the purpose.”
Fitness trackers can estimate your heart rate zones and tell you how to hit them during your workout. They can also help you design workouts that specifically target goals including building endurance and stamina.
Experts recommend different exercises for each zone: zone one can be a warm-up or cool-down, zone two should be a little more challenging but manageable for long stretches, zone three should be higher intensity and less sustainable, and zone four should be what you consider your threshold training at which you max out.
The devices can also calculate heart rate variability, which monitors how recovered or tired you are between workouts by tracking how your heart rate naturally fluctuates between beats. Lower numbers after an intense workout indicate that the person needs a longer recovery time, while higher numbers show that the person can recover much faster.
However, experts point out that fitness trackers are not always reliable and can make mistakes, adding that potential users should not put too much trust in the data. Dr. Larson told Times“Any device will detect things accurately sometimes, and sometimes it can also be unreliable.”
She recommends trying to talk while you exercise to assess your heart health; Paying attention to this can be an easy way to monitor her performance without any fancy devices.
