It’s great that you are committing to living a healthy lifestyle that includes regular exercise and a sensible diet. In order to help you get the most from the workouts, it’s a good idea to invest in a heart rate monitor. Whether you go with a monitor designed to rest next to your heart or one that fits easily around the wrist, the key is using the information gathered from the device to best effect. Here are some of the ways that collected data will help make your workouts more effective and help you reach your fitness goals.
Understanding How Different Exercises Affect the Heart Rate
What sort of exercises do you plan including in your workout? There are plenty of different options that are worth considering. Depending on the state of your health, some would be a better choice right now than others. The monitor can help you settle on the best exercises for right now. For example, you may decide that investing in a jump rope is a good idea. It’s certainly a workout that you can do anywhere and requires little in the way of equipment. Wearing the monitor while you jump rope provides an idea of how quickly the activity increases your heart rate and how long it takes for the rate to return to a normal range. The same is true with any other activity from walking to lifting weights, or running on a treadmill.
This is important for anyone, but it’s especially helpful for people who have diagnosed health issues. The data collected will help you know which exercises provide a safe cardiovascular workout and will help to build your endurance without creating more stress than your heart can handle at the present time.
Knowing When It’s Time to Increase Resistance
The monitor can also function as a great way to know when it’s time to add repetitions or increase resistance with different elements of your workout. Think of it as the perfect partner for your activity tracker.
As your endurance increases and the muscle tone improves, you’ll notice that your heart rate does not increase as much when you perform certain exercises. That’s the sign that you need to add a little more weight, perform more repetitions of pull-ups, push-ups, or sit-ups, or add another half-mile to your walk. Keeping the workout challenging but doable will motivate you to keep at it and continue to enjoy improved health and endurance.
Accurately Measuring Your Heart’s Progress
It’s not just your muscles that you want to tone. Ideally, everything you do will help make your heart stronger. During those first few weeks of working out, the information captured by the heart monitor can be one of the most reliable ways to gauge what your workouts are accomplishing. Along with noticing that your tummy is a little flatter and your leg muscles are beginning to have more definition, the fact that your heart is responding to the workout is encouraging. That gives you one more reason to keep up the routine and possibly add to it from time to time.
If you don’t own a heart monitor and would like one suitable for wearing while working out, check out the models on the market today. You will find them wherever there’s sports equipment for sale. Compare the features and find one that’s comfortable and comes with a high rating. The purchase will be money that’s well invested.
