When doing aerobic exercise, it is important to make sure that your heart rate is high enough and that you are working hard enough. If you aren’t reaching a certain level of intensity, you won’t get the benefits of doing aerobic exercise, and as a result, you will not feel or see any of the related results.
Methods of Measuring Exercise Intensity
There are several methods to measure at what intensity you are exercising: Heart Rate, Rating of Perceived Exertion and the Talk Test.
| Method | What it is |
|---|---|
| Heart Rate | This method is the most effective and accurate way of determining how hard you are exercising. You need to understand what your target heart rate zonesare and then, while exercising, you have to take your pulse to evaluate in which zone your heart rate falls. There are two methods of finding your Target Heart Rates:
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| Perceived Exertion | Based on how you feel during exercise, this method requires you to listen to your body and to be able to judge if you are working hard enough. |
| Talk Test | Mostly used to know if you are working too hard, this method says that if you can’t hold a conversation while you are exercising, you are probably over exerting yourself and should decrease intensity. |
Target Heart Rate Zones
Regardless of the method used, however, the Target Heart Rate Zones remain the same. The chart below describes the zones in detail.
| Target Heart Rate Zone* | What it does | Who Should be in this Range |
|---|---|---|
| 55% – 65% of Maximum Heart Rate(MHR)** | Absolute minimum of where your heart rate should be in order to see cardiovascular benefits. Training in this zone will begin to improve your hearts’ ability to pump blood and improve the muscle cells ability to utilize oxygen. This is a good zone for long slow distance exercise. | Those who are beginning an exercise regimen or are out of shape |
| 65 – 75% of MHR | The “Aerobic Zone” or “Target Heart Rate Zone”, it is the most effective for overall cardiovascular fitness. It increases your cardio-respiratory capacity (the body’s ability to transport oxygenated blood to the muscle cells and carbon dioxide away from the cells). After a while you will be able to go longer in less time and your body will burn less glucose and more stored fat as fuel. |
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| 75 – 85% of MHR | This zone often results in significant training effects in the heart, lungs and skeletal muscles, resulting in improved aerobic performance. |
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| 85% – 90% of MHR | At this point you begin to cross over from aerobic training to anaerobic training (anaerobic threshold). At this point, the body cannot effectively remove lactic acid from the working muscles quickly enough. This zone is very difficult and your muscles become tired, your breathing becomes heavy and you become fatigued. The benefit of training in this zone is that you can increase your body’s ability to tolerate and deal with lactic acid for a longer period of time. |
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| 90 – 100% of MHR (VO2 Max) | In this zone, lactic acid develops very quickly because you are operating with oxygen debt to the muscles. You will not be able to stay at this level very long. |
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