New information on target heart rate for exercise….
Welcome to our health & self help blog.
Focus on Your Health:
In it we post health commentary & reviews of books, eBooks, & other things that improve or protect your health or which enable you to live longer, to be more prosperous, & to be more effective.
We do posts on staying healthy; preventing disease; aging more slowly; weight loss; exercise; nutrition; & news in medicine.
Today's post: Thursday, 5-3-2007
New information on target heart rate for exercise….
Some people like to have an estimate for what their likely safe maximum heart rate might be.
And, some personal trainers & fitness coaches will suggest exercising at a certain percent of your target heart rate.
The original guideline that you may have heard of didn’t have a lot of science behind it but seemed reasonable. It’s 220 beats per minute minus your age.
But I’ve known for some time that there are two problems with it.
For totally unfit & somewhat unhealthy or overweight people it may suggest too high a level for safety.
And, for very fit older people, it often produces a much lower number than is at all appropriate. It even sometimes suggests a maximum rate that is only slightly difficult or even somewhat easy for a person in their normal exercise routine they already do.
I just read two better methods in one of the health emails I get.
The first one was to get an estimate by taking 208 & subtracting .7 or 7/10ths of your age from it.
For people 40 years old, both methods yield an estimate of 180 beats per minute.
My suspicion is that for people under 40 the old method is more accurate. And, for people over 40 this 208 minus seven tenths of your age is somewhat better.
But the article includes a MUCH better method than either.
Simply rate how you feel doing the exercise from one to ten with ten being what feels like the most intense you can imagine doing & one being the effort it takes to watch TV or be in a coma where you don’t move at all.
To put it even simpler, if it feels hard, moderately challenging, or easy, for you right then, it IS hard, moderately challenging, or easy.
And, the neat thing about this one is that it matters not how fit or old you are, it tends to be quite reliably accurate.
The article then goes on to suggest a similar way to use this feedback. (Dr Al Sears suggests something similar.)
For cardio do it moderately hard for a while & then do it much more vigorously for a while but for less time. And, then repeat the overall pattern for a few times.
I saw research reported once that said that people who exercise this way, usually get fit much faster than people who simply exercise for a long time at a moderate level. And, my personal experience suggests, it also moves you to a higher level of fitness than you would otherwise get to if you simply keep exercising this way.
Some may ask, “Aren’t the number estimates more likely to be safe?” I think they are NOT for two reasons.
First, you are descended from people who survived, which means how hard the exercise feels to you is quite likely to accurate. The people where it was way off didn’t survive.
Second, as a safety factor, the ONLY data in these by number estimates besides the formula is your age. Sure more 70 year olds have strokes & heart attacks than 20 year olds do.
But if you know if a person smokes or never smokes; their blood levels of HDL & LDL cholesterol, homocysteine, CReactive Protein, fasting glucose, insulin, & HBA1C AND their age & sex, you have a MUCH more accurate picture of whether or not they are a heart attack waiting to happen.
And you know with some accuracy how safe it is for them to exercise at a level that feels hard—or not.
Even better, you then know if they need to correct these things with diet, supplements, &/or drugs before they push too hard.
Why use a numerical guide based only on your age, when how you feel & a more complete analysis of your heart health risks is much more accurate AND likely to keep you safe?
Focus on Your Health:
In it we post health commentary & reviews of books, eBooks, & other things that improve or protect your health or which enable you to live longer, to be more prosperous, & to be more effective.
We do posts on staying healthy; preventing disease; aging more slowly; weight loss; exercise; nutrition; & news in medicine.
Today's post: Thursday, 5-3-2007
New information on target heart rate for exercise….
Some people like to have an estimate for what their likely safe maximum heart rate might be.
And, some personal trainers & fitness coaches will suggest exercising at a certain percent of your target heart rate.
The original guideline that you may have heard of didn’t have a lot of science behind it but seemed reasonable. It’s 220 beats per minute minus your age.
But I’ve known for some time that there are two problems with it.
For totally unfit & somewhat unhealthy or overweight people it may suggest too high a level for safety.
And, for very fit older people, it often produces a much lower number than is at all appropriate. It even sometimes suggests a maximum rate that is only slightly difficult or even somewhat easy for a person in their normal exercise routine they already do.
I just read two better methods in one of the health emails I get.
The first one was to get an estimate by taking 208 & subtracting .7 or 7/10ths of your age from it.
For people 40 years old, both methods yield an estimate of 180 beats per minute.
My suspicion is that for people under 40 the old method is more accurate. And, for people over 40 this 208 minus seven tenths of your age is somewhat better.
But the article includes a MUCH better method than either.
Simply rate how you feel doing the exercise from one to ten with ten being what feels like the most intense you can imagine doing & one being the effort it takes to watch TV or be in a coma where you don’t move at all.
To put it even simpler, if it feels hard, moderately challenging, or easy, for you right then, it IS hard, moderately challenging, or easy.
And, the neat thing about this one is that it matters not how fit or old you are, it tends to be quite reliably accurate.
The article then goes on to suggest a similar way to use this feedback. (Dr Al Sears suggests something similar.)
For cardio do it moderately hard for a while & then do it much more vigorously for a while but for less time. And, then repeat the overall pattern for a few times.
I saw research reported once that said that people who exercise this way, usually get fit much faster than people who simply exercise for a long time at a moderate level. And, my personal experience suggests, it also moves you to a higher level of fitness than you would otherwise get to if you simply keep exercising this way.
Some may ask, “Aren’t the number estimates more likely to be safe?” I think they are NOT for two reasons.
First, you are descended from people who survived, which means how hard the exercise feels to you is quite likely to accurate. The people where it was way off didn’t survive.
Second, as a safety factor, the ONLY data in these by number estimates besides the formula is your age. Sure more 70 year olds have strokes & heart attacks than 20 year olds do.
But if you know if a person smokes or never smokes; their blood levels of HDL & LDL cholesterol, homocysteine, CReactive Protein, fasting glucose, insulin, & HBA1C AND their age & sex, you have a MUCH more accurate picture of whether or not they are a heart attack waiting to happen.
And you know with some accuracy how safe it is for them to exercise at a level that feels hard—or not.
Even better, you then know if they need to correct these things with diet, supplements, &/or drugs before they push too hard.
Why use a numerical guide based only on your age, when how you feel & a more complete analysis of your heart health risks is much more accurate AND likely to keep you safe?
Labels: cardio, exercise, heart risks, target heart rate
posted by David at 1:11 PM
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