Heart Rate

A common question people ask when we discuss exercise is “ how do I know if I’m exercising hard enough?”. What should my heart rate be?

A reasonable question, it can be explained in a number of ways and may differ depending on the exercise goal. Most often we use heart rate as the measuring stick to determine the intensity of exercise, makes sense the harder you work the greater the need for your body tissues for oxygen and fuel, the faster your heart needs to beat to bring the oxygen and fuel around to the various tissues through the blood. We can also use breathing rate, more on that later. The intensity you exercise at is termed the training zone. This is merely a range of heart rate you should be working at to achieve a particular goal.

For example a person having a goal of increasing their cardiovascular endurance may have a different training zone than someone primarily interested in weight loss. Note that any exercise is beneficial for either population but there may be more bang for your buck at certain heart rates.

So how do you calculate your training zone? Typically we use a percentage of your maximal heart rate, well great but what is my maximum heart rate? We use a theoretical maximum of 220 beats per minute minus your age, so at 40 years old your maximum heart rate is 180 beats per minute.

Now that we know the maximum heart rate we need to be able to measure your heart rate, the easiest location is at the carotid artery at the side of the neck, to find this artery, slide your fingers backwards from the mid-line of the neck until you feel it, alternately you could use the radial pulse on the thumb side of the wrist just below the base of the thumb. The higher tech way would be to use a heart rate monitor which uses a sensor strap around the chest and wirelessly feeds the information to a watch. The advantage here is you can save this information to your computer and track your progress.

Now we know how to measure our heart rate, where should it be during exercise? To train your heart for endurance typically you want to work at a higher intensity of 70-90% of maximum , for more fat burning a lower intensity of 50-70% of maximum.

Another way to measure exercise intensity which is proven to be accurate, (actually a method developed by a University of Toronto professor I had) is the talk test. Simply to check if you’re exercising at a moderate intensity of 50%-70% you should be able to carry on a conversation without being breathless, if you are at a higher intensity you would be unable to carry on a conversation.

Put one of these methods to the test the next time you’re exercising and see if you’re at the right intensity for your particular fitness goal.

For further blogs go here https://yourpickeringchiropractors.ca

Different Types of Exercises

By now you’ve seen my posts on the benefits of exercise, if there ever was a fountain of youth it is exercise.

For the uninitiated however, exercise is a loaded word, there are so many types of exercise floating about and all are the “best” at doing something, making you stronger, fitter, leaner, faster etc.

There may be some truth to that for the athlete, the bodybuilder etc., but when I’m recommending exercise or encouraging someone to be more active any exercise is good, with some exceptions, more on that later.

Lets break down some of the words of exercise to understand them better.

Aerobic exercise- aka “cardio”- this probably came into our collective consciousness in the ‘80’s with the “20 minute work-out” the leotards and the leg warmers. Aerobic exercise simply means “ with oxygen” your muscles are using a fuel source that requires oxygen and this exercise tends to be of a longer duration, minutes or longer and is responsible for innumerable health benefits; lowered risk of heart disease, blood sugar control, improved cardiovascular (heart/lung) health, blood pressure and cholesterol, mental health improvements etc. Walking or jogging, aerobic classes, cross country skiing are examples of aerobic exercises.

Anerobic exercise- this type of exercise requires no oxygen and depends on the fuel stored in the muscles for energy. This type of exercise is intense, short lived (seconds instead of minutes) think, sprint instead of marathon. Anerobic exercise tends to be uncomfortable, however it is short lived and can result in increased strength and endurance especially if done in sets or bursts of high intensity.

Resistance training/strength training- is just that working against some kind of resistance, this is what most people think of when they think of “weight lifting”, however you don’t need to go to a gym and lift iron barbells around to get the benefits of resistance training, you can simply use your own body weight or exercise bands to get a positive effect. What kinds of effects, you ask? The list is exhaustive but here are a few; increased lean muscle mass ( we lose muscle as we age), increase metabolism ( as muscle mass decreases so does our internal “ thermostat” so more muscle more fuel burned), decrease diabetes risk/ improve diabetes control, lower blood pressure, reduce cardiovascular disease…etc., you get the idea.

The best message is get out and do something that elevates your heart rate be it aerobic, anerobic or resistance training of some kind every day.

https://yourpickeringchiropractors.ca

 

See Dr. Mike Evans great video here for more information.

http://www.evanshealthlab.com/23-and-12-hours/