Have you ever noticed that everyone who runs these days seems to be wearing a heart rate monitor? Everyone, it seems, is keen on knowing how fast their heart is beating during exercise.
It’s not just a passing fad; using a heart rate monitor and knowing your heart rate training zones is an important component of physical fitness.
How a Heart Rate Monitor Can Help You Burn More Fat
Depending upon your goals, you should be working in a particular heart rate zone when you exercise in order for that exercise to be most effective. For example, you work in one heart rate training zone to burn fat and another to improve your cardiovascular system.
A heart rate monitor helps you ensure that you’re working in the right training zone during your entire workout by keeping track of your heart rate. Many heart rate monitors can even be programmed to let you know that you need to slow down or pick up the pace in order to stay in your training zone.
Using a heart rate monitor takes the guesswork out of your aerobic workout. If you’re running, for example, your heart rate monitor can easily tell when you you’re in a warm up training zone, and when you’ve moved to the fat burning zone. If you want to ensure that you’re burning fat for at least 20 minutes per day, you can easily ensure that you stay in that zone for the proper length of time by using a heart rate monitor.
The Heart Rate Training Zones
Following are the heart rate training zones you should be shooting for in your workouts. You can determine your heart rate training zone by considering you’re your Maximum Heart Rate (MHR) and your Resting Heart Rate (RHR).
The Recovery Zone – 60% to 70% of MHR
Training in the recovery zone develops endurance and aerobic ability. You burn fat, and your muscles re-energize with glycogen.
The Aerobic Zone – 70% to 80% of MHR
This is the best training for developing your cardiovascular system, because you improve your body’s capacity for transporting oxygen to muscles and for removing carbon dioxide from them. You burn less fat, but you train your heart.
The Anaerobic Zone – 80% to 90% of MHR
You use the glycogen stored in your muscles when training in this zone, instead of using fat. Training at this level is only needed if you want to develop your lactic acid system.
The Red Line Zone 90% to 100% of MHR
Training here helps you develop speed, but it can only be done for a short period of time. Run your high intensity intervals at this level. Following these guidelines, you can set your target heart rates for each of your workouts. Then, use your heart rate monitor to help you ensure that you’re getting the perfect workout every time.
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