The easiest and most effective way to design a fitness program which is personalized to you is by basing it on your individual heart rate patterns. If you want to exercise effectively and prevent injury, you need to understand certain basic terms and concepts surrounding how your own heart reacts to stress.
Understanding your own heart rate, your maximum heart rate, your anaerobic thresholds, and your resting rate is pretty much fundamental for beginning any sort of serious exercise program. If you want a program that is tailored to you and not someone else, base it on your heart rate patterns.
The speed that your heart pumps blood around the body is measured in beats per minute (bpm). As more blood is required by muscles, etc., your heart will pump faster. Keep in mind that your heart rate will be higher when your body is also stressed, sick or working ineffectively, so high heart rate is not always a good thing.
The measure of your baseline health and fitness is your resting heart rate. This shows how hard your heart has to work just in order to maintain your body without any extra demands on it. One of the most important reasons to exercise is to train your body to be able to do more with less effort. As such, generally speaking, as you get fitter, your resting heart rate will go down. Your heart will be able to pump more blood with less effort.
As such, knowing your resting heart rate at the beginning of a program will give you an indication of your current fitness and whether you improve.
The best time to measure your resting heart rate is when you wake up, before getting out of bed. All you need is a watch that can count seconds. It is also possible to take it after any extended period of lying down, for example if you had been watching TV, as long as it wasn't too exciting.
Find your pulse either at your radial artery on your wrist just below your thumb or at your carotid artery in your neck either side of your throat. Make sure you are using just your index and middle finger to find the pulse, as your thumb has a slight pulse of its own and can confuse the counting.
Now, time yourself and count how many times it pulses in ten seconds, starting by counting 'zero'. Then times this by 6 and you have your resting heart rate in beats per minutes. (You can also count for 30 seconds and times it by 2, if you feel this is more accurate, or count for the full 60 seconds, as with only a 10 second timeframe, miss-counting by one can have a much larger effect.)
The general ranges are: Below 60 = fit, 60-80 = average, 80-100 = high but still okay, and 101+ is not good and you should talk to your doctor.
It is best to record your heart rate every morning for a week to try and get an average as its quite easy to have an unusual reading, such as waking up after a nightmare, or falling back asleep as you count.
One final point is that if you are serious and are pushing yourself hard, for personal reasons or because you are a competitive athlete, then you should take your heart rate every morning upon waking. An increase in resting heart rate of 10bpm or more indicates that your body is stressed, either fighting an illness or from being overtrained. You should therefore reduce training on these days, which will help you to remain injury and sickness free.
Understanding your own heart rate, your maximum heart rate, your anaerobic thresholds, and your resting rate is pretty much fundamental for beginning any sort of serious exercise program. If you want a program that is tailored to you and not someone else, base it on your heart rate patterns.
The speed that your heart pumps blood around the body is measured in beats per minute (bpm). As more blood is required by muscles, etc., your heart will pump faster. Keep in mind that your heart rate will be higher when your body is also stressed, sick or working ineffectively, so high heart rate is not always a good thing.
The measure of your baseline health and fitness is your resting heart rate. This shows how hard your heart has to work just in order to maintain your body without any extra demands on it. One of the most important reasons to exercise is to train your body to be able to do more with less effort. As such, generally speaking, as you get fitter, your resting heart rate will go down. Your heart will be able to pump more blood with less effort.
As such, knowing your resting heart rate at the beginning of a program will give you an indication of your current fitness and whether you improve.
The best time to measure your resting heart rate is when you wake up, before getting out of bed. All you need is a watch that can count seconds. It is also possible to take it after any extended period of lying down, for example if you had been watching TV, as long as it wasn't too exciting.
Find your pulse either at your radial artery on your wrist just below your thumb or at your carotid artery in your neck either side of your throat. Make sure you are using just your index and middle finger to find the pulse, as your thumb has a slight pulse of its own and can confuse the counting.
Now, time yourself and count how many times it pulses in ten seconds, starting by counting 'zero'. Then times this by 6 and you have your resting heart rate in beats per minutes. (You can also count for 30 seconds and times it by 2, if you feel this is more accurate, or count for the full 60 seconds, as with only a 10 second timeframe, miss-counting by one can have a much larger effect.)
The general ranges are: Below 60 = fit, 60-80 = average, 80-100 = high but still okay, and 101+ is not good and you should talk to your doctor.
It is best to record your heart rate every morning for a week to try and get an average as its quite easy to have an unusual reading, such as waking up after a nightmare, or falling back asleep as you count.
One final point is that if you are serious and are pushing yourself hard, for personal reasons or because you are a competitive athlete, then you should take your heart rate every morning upon waking. An increase in resting heart rate of 10bpm or more indicates that your body is stressed, either fighting an illness or from being overtrained. You should therefore reduce training on these days, which will help you to remain injury and sickness free.
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