Thanks to technology, we have all become data experts, especially when it comes to exercise. Just a few years ago, most of us didn’t know exactly how many steps he walked in a day, how far he ran, or what his pace was, but now… Wearable devices have literally put this information at our fingertips.
One piece of information to look out for is your heart rate. This number alone can tell you a lot about your workout, recovery ability, and overall health.
Exercise physiologist Chris Travers, MS, explains what you need to know if you’re considering a heart rate monitor, and the best ways to use one the next time you get physically active.
Why you should wear it
The Cleveland Clinic’s 2024 Heart Health Survey of the U.S. General Population found that 50% of Americans use at least one type of technology to monitor their health, and more than half of all Americans use heart rate monitoring. They report that they are specifically tracking the numbers. No wonder cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of death in the United States, with 928,741 deaths in 2020.
But how does heart rate factor into your exercise routine? So why should you monitor your heart rate when you’re exercising?
Using a heart rate monitor during your workout allows you to track important information beyond just how fast your heart is beating.
“Exercising uses energy,” Travers explains. “Measuring your heart rate tells you what energy sources you’re using.”
The higher your heart rate, the more calories you burn. “But when your heart rate is high, your body can’t burn fat fast enough, so you burn more carbohydrates than fat for energy,” Travers continues.
Using a heart rate monitor during your workout allows you to adjust your energy output to match your heart rate to the optimal level for burning fat.
“Developing optimal aerobic exercise habits involves not only exercise duration, but also exercise intensity,” Travers points out. “Monitoring your exercise intensity allows for optimal calorie expenditure and fat and carbohydrate burning. A good heart rate monitor will help you monitor the intensity of your workout.”
Heart rate monitors work by measuring electrical signals from the heart. These signals are sent to your watch or to a data center. Many models allow you to analyze data through a computer, which allows you to interpret your workout and better understand the benefits of your exercise.
Monitoring your own pulse the old-fashioned way (feeling it on your wrist or neck) can also give you a rough estimate, but that can interfere with your actual training. Using an electronic heart rate monitor will give you more accurate real-time data.
Should I wear a heart monitor while exercising?
No, you don’t need to incorporate a heart rate monitor into your workout routine. You can maintain an active and healthy lifestyle full of movement without using anything. But if the information provided by a heart rate monitor is important to you, especially during workouts and in the process of losing weight, you may want to give it a try.
Heart rate during exercise is an important indicator of exercise intensity.
“Maintaining a steady heart rate over long periods of time can help you burn more calories and fat, while also improving your cardiovascular health,” says Travers.
But it’s also possible to overexert yourself, and a heart rate monitor can also warn you of that danger.
How to wear a heart rate monitor correctly and what heart rate zones mean
A heart rate monitor lets you know your current heart rate zone while exercising. First, you need your maximum heart rate, which you can get by subtracting your age from 220. For example, if you are 35 years old, your maximum heart rate is 185. At this point you should know what your heart rate zone is. Perfect for burning fat.
At 50% to 60% of your maximum heart rate, 85% of fat is used to burn calories. At 60% to 70% of your maximum heart rate, the percentage of fat used drops to 65%. And at 70% to 80%, only 45% fat is used to burn calories.
Tips for choosing the right heart rate monitor for you
Heart rate monitor is a more scientific way to know your health status and track your progress. Although more devices are coming to the market, such as rings and bicep straps, for the past decade there have been two main versions of heart rate monitors. They are fitness trackers (which replaced strapless wrist-based heart rate monitors) and chest strap monitors.
fitness tracker
Fitness trackers have become extremely popular over the last decade because they allow you to easily track specific fitness goals such as steps, distance traveled, and even more detailed data such as calories burned and heart rate.
We know that setting smart fitness goals can help you achieve goals such as: sconcrete, metermeasurable, beachievable, rElegant time-bound — Greatly improve your overall fitness success. Over the years, fitness tracker technology has evolved significantly, largely eliminating the accuracy issues of the past and making achieving these goals easier than ever. As this technology improves, the price of these devices has also dropped significantly and their popularity has skyrocketed.
“If you think back eight to 10 years ago, the only people wearing these things were serious runners, and they were big, slightly unwieldy devices,” Travers said. “If you look around now, everyone is wearing a fitness tracker, whether it’s an Apple® Watch, Garmin® or Fitbit®.”
Each fitness tracker is different and offers different features that may or may not be useful to you. However, most products now include real-time heart rate tracking, which is also very useful.
In addition to knowing your heart rate during exercise, you can also get information about your resting heart rate and sleep heart rate.
“Health-wise, it tells you how your cardiovascular system is doing,” Travers adds. “The lower your resting heart rate, the less work your heart has to do to perform its normal daily functions, which is important. will get better.”
Chest strap models also use electrodes in pads that touch the skin to measure the heart’s electrical activity, while fitness trackers use optical sensors that measure blood flow in the veins beneath the sensor. Misalignment of your fitness tracker can affect the accuracy of your data. However, improvements in this technology mean that measurements are much more accurate than they were a few years ago.
chest strap model
The most common chest strap model styles consist of two components: the chest strap and the watch receiver. The basic model shows time and heart rate and is an open signal, Travers said.
Advanced models use coded signals and can be used in conjunction with footpads to adjust cadence, distance, and speed. Some products are equipped with GPS, allowing you to mark and search locations and save previous courses and workouts.
The advantages of the chest strap model are:
- Provides continuous heart rate information without having to stop for measurement or viewing.
- They tend to be more accurate than strapless models.
- More models to choose from.
Disadvantages of strap models include:
- Usually more expensive.
- The basic model has an open signal and may interfere with other monitors.
- The chest strap may be uncomfortable for some people.
What is the conclusion?
“Regardless of the brand you use, knowing what your body is doing during exercise can help you make the most of your time,” says Travers. “Let’s have fun and move our bodies!”
