Love your heart…

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February 14th, 2020

To maintain a healthy heart, experts tell us that we should all be taking some aerobic exercise every week

We are told that each week, we should be doing 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity or 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic activity.

but what does “moderate” and “vigorous” actually mean?

Calculate how hard you’re working

To asses whether you are exercising at a “vigorous” or “moderate’ level of exertion, use your heart rate during exercise (or other aerobic activity) as a guide. You may like to have a calculator to hand as you read the next bit.

First of all, calculate your maximum heart rate. You can estimate this as being your age subtracted from 220. For example, for a young at heart 40 year old, this will be 180. In other words, 180 beats per minute would be your maximum heart rate. Note that this is a general guide and your maximum heart rate may vary from the estimate.

Moderate intensity exercise

Moderate exercise will put your heart rate in the zone of 50 – 70% of your maximum heart rate so using the example of a 40 year old, a heart rate during exercise of around 90 – 126 beats per minute would qualify as moderate.

Vigorous intensity exercise

Vigorous exercise is defined as a heart rate in the range of 70 – 85% of maximum heart rate so for our 40 year old, this would put the heart rate during exercise at between 126 – 153 beats per minute.

Calculating your heart rate during exercise:

Take a break from your exercise but keep moving by walking around.

Find your pulse, one of two ways:
• At the wrist by placing your index and second finger on the wrist just below the thumb joint or
• By placing the same two fingers at the carotid artery of the neck, just below the jaw bone to one side of the neck.

Start counting the pulse and work out your beats per minute as follows:
• Count for 15 seconds and multiply by 4
• Count for 30 seconds and multiply by 2
• If your maths is up to it, you could count for 10 seconds and multiply by 6…

This will tell you your beats per minute
From this, you can decide if you’re working at a moderate or vigorous level of exertion.

If you find you are below the moderate level, or that you are in the moderate zone when you were aiming for vigorous, it’s time to work a little harder.

Interval Training

Interval training is an excellent way of reaching both moderate and vigorous intensity exercise goals. Shorter bursts of higher intensity exercise can be interspersed with moderate, “recovery” levels. This is a highly effective way of improving your cardio-vascular (heart and lung) fitness. FitActive’s classes running in the Cotswold village of Lower Swell and in Churchill, Oxfordshire both include interval work.

If you’re new to fitness, a personal trainer is the best guide to introduce you to interval training, to help you to build activity into your life and to coach you to improved whole-body fitness.

If you have any concerns about your health, consult your GP or other health professional before undertaking a new exercise programme.

Reference: Mayo Clinic Staff. (2018). Exercise intensity: How to measure it.
mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/fitness/in-depth/exercise-intensity/art-20046887?pg=2