“If you can carry on a conversation during a workout, your heart rate is probably at a good pace,” says Dr. Shafton is quick to point out that it is no substitute for simply listening to your body the old-fashioned way. And while heart rate monitors may be a useful way to evaluate how hard you’re exercising, Dr. Shafton suggest that meticulously tracking your heart rate during exercise will not reap outsized benefits. So should you now make sure to faithfully log 20 minutes of high-intensity workouts three times a week? Is that the perfect workout to help the weight fall off your body and make your heart beat with the strength of 10 bass drums? 125 to 162 beats per minute for a 40-year-old. High intensity: 70-90 percent of maximum heart rate. 90 to 124 beats per minute for a 40-year-old. Moderate intensity: 50-69 percent of your maximum heart rate. Maximum target heart rate: Take 220 – your age. Resting heart rate: 60-80 beats per minute With heart rate monitors on workout machines, watches and smartphones, we’re paying more attention to our tickers than ever, but do we know what we’re looking at? And how should that guide our workout? Dr. Your heart rate can tell you what intensity your workout was and if it really looked like the hardcore workout montage you just starred in in your mind. Heart rate monitors in particular are touted as a great way to measure the intensity of your workout.
Whether it is heart rate, step-tracking, sleep-tracking or stand-up reminders, these tools are about driving decisions, not about amassing data. “The Fitbits are a great motivational tool to use for encouragement for exercise-being able to track steps and how much activity you are taking part in,” says Asher Shafton, MD, a cardiologist at the Heart Institute of Colorado. It’s less about the numbers and more about the behaviors and motivation the numbers help create. Be it a Fitbit, Apple Watch, a screen at the gym or an app on our smart phone, we’re often wearing a device that reports our sleep patterns, heart rate and overall activity.īut what does all of this information really tell us? Is a heart rate of 150 a good thing? Are my 10,000 steps worth bragging to my friends about? Want more inspiring health tips delivered right to your inbox? Subscribe to our newsletter.įor many of us, our workout partner has become a gadget, not a person.