Why You Should Care About Heart Rate Based Training

Posted by aurofit on February 7th, 2020

Keeping track of your heart rate during a workout can help you reach optimum levels of fitness. It’s an objective and scientific way to determine whether you’re pushing too hard or need to exert more effort. If you already have a fitness band or a heart rate monitor, then you're all set for heart rate based training.

Your heart rate is the number of times your heart beats in one minute. Heart rate based trainingaimsto keep your heart rate within a particular range while working out. Thisrange is a percentage of your maximum heart rate, and the “ideal” range depends on your cardiovascular goals.

If your goal is to recover from or prepare for a hard workout while burning calories, aim for 60% of your maximum heart rate. If you want to improve your overall cardiovascular fitness while burning calories, 70% is ideal. You may want to improve your endurance without pushing yourself to the limits and if so, then aim to reach 70% to 80% of your maximum heart rate. And if your goal is to improve your heart’s efficiency (its ability to pump out more blood with each beat) then aim for 90% to 95%.

Heart rate based training is ideal for any aerobic exercise where you must sustain effort for at least 20 minutes, such as running and cycling. However, it is not ideal for determining your effort in high-intensity interval training where intervals are shorter. This is because you should focus on doing the exercise as hard as you can for a short period of time instead of constantly looking at your fitness band or heart rate monitor. Readings may also become misleading as your heart rate may peak soon after you finish with your maximum effort instead of during your workout. Likewise, heart rate based training is not ideal if your goal is to build muscle, as muscle building has a stop-and-start nature.

Heart rate based training is best for improving your cardiovascular fitness, and it is a means to combine objective and subjective measures of training. Start tracking your performance with Auro today. Start your 14-day free trial now to see just how effective heart rate based performance tracking is.

About the Author:

Auro is an audio fitness app that provides access to hundreds of on-demand audio workoutsfor at home, the gym, and outdoors. We offer an extensive range of workouts synced to music that you love, including HIIT, Running, Spin, Yoga, and more. New classes are added every week, so you will never get bored. We also offer 12+ structured training plans ranging from easing into exercise as a fitness newbie to training for a Half Marathon. You can even work out offline by downloading the classes. Simply grab your headphones and enjoy our on-demand training and guidance from world-class fitness experts.