How high should your heart rate be when walking

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Partner Offers feature brands who paid Forbes Health to appear at the top of our list. While this may influence where their products or services appear on our site, it in no way affects our ratings, which are based on thorough research, solid methodologies and expert advice. Our partners cannot pay us to guarantee favorable reviews of their products or services

Also, body position while taking heart rate measurements can affect the results. For example, lying down and being relaxed helps lower one’s blood pressure and HR.

Finding your heart rate

Each heartbeat pushes blood through the circulatory system, creating a 'pulse' of blood, the indicator of HR. Most fitness trackers are worn on the wrist, measuring the body’s heart rate at that common point.

To manually measure your heart rate, place a finger, not thumb, over the pulse and count the number of beats in 15 seconds and multiply by 4.

What is heart rate training, and why use it?

So how can HR help with fitness?

HR training uses your HR as either BPM or as a percentage of your maximum heart rate (MHR). Your MHR is 220 minus your age.

This can be used to guide a fitness routine and create specific training ‘zones’. This will allow one to maximise every workout, while avoiding overtraining because it tells you just how hard the body has been made to work during each session. It's easier to get the results you want and track the progress towards your fitness goals.

What are the different heart rate zones?

There are 5 different heart rate zones and they relate to exercise intensity:

• 85% fat
• 5% protein
• 10% carbohydrates

• 85% fat
• 5% protein
• 10% carbohydrates

• 50% fat
• >1% protein
• 50% carbohydrates

• 15% fat
• >1% protein
• 85% carbohydrates

• 10% fat
• >1% protein
• 90% carbohydrates

You'll get different benefits by exercising in different HR zones, as each one burns different proportions of carbohydrates, protein, and fat.

Ideally for the best results, fitness routines should be varied for length and intensity, with recovery days in between. The best workout routine for you depends on your specific goals. This could be weight loss, or training towards completing an endurance event.

It's easiest to monitor your HR with a fitness monitor, but you can calculate the rates by taking your pulse regularly as you exercise.

Factors that influence heart rate during exercise

• Body temperature: If you’re too hot or cold, your HR typically increases as your body works to keep warm, or cool down, especially in high humidity or extreme cold.


• Terrain: HR increases as your body works harder when you move uphill or negotiate difficult terrain.


• Wind: Running into the wind is more difficult and increases HR.


• Dehydration: If you don’t replace the water you’re using up, your HR increases as your heart works harder when dehydrated.


• Reduced glycogen stores: As your bodies fuel levels drop, your HR rises.

When to worry about heart rate during exercise

Stop any exercise of physical activity if you feel your HR becoming uncomfortable, especially if you begin to feel weak, dizzy, short of breath, or faint. Seek medical attention promptly at the nearest A&E department. If the symptoms resolve, do schedule an appointment with your primary physician to discuss further.

Signs there could be heart issues

With regular exercise, you will begin to know what feels normal or comfortable. You will also be more familiar with your HR readings with the efforts you put into your workout. Should your HR vary too much from what's normal for you, it could be a sign of an underlying problem.

A slow HR could indicate an underactive thyroid, or point to an intrinsic electrical problem that prevents the electrical impulses responsible for coordinating your heartbeat from working properly. A faster than typical HR could be caused by infections and fever, anaemia and asthma.

What to do if you are worried about heart disease

Because heart health is paramount, one should, at the first sign of any symptoms or abnormal pulse, make an appointment to see your doctor. He or she will be able to advise you on the next steps, and may want to examine you for heart health issues.

How to screen for heart health issues

These are some of the tests that may feature in a heart screening:

• Electrocardiography (ECG): Measures the heart's electrical activity, HR, and rhythm.


• Treadmill stress test: Involves measuring the heart's rate, rhythm, electrical activity, and blood pressure while the patient walks on a treadmill at increasing difficulty levels of difficulty.


• Echocardiography: This ultrasound takes moving pictures of the heart, either at rest or following exercise.


• Holter monitor: Heart rhythm monitoring which allows continuous surveillance of the heart’s rhythm over 24 – 72 hours.

HR is an excellent indicator of overall health. It can also help you to optimise your fitness routine and monitor your progress.

However, it may be advisable to consult your doctor if you have prior heart health issues for advice before beginning any exercise programme to make sure that it won’t pose a medical risk. Should any chest pain, breathing difficulties, dizziness, or fainting, be experienced at any point before, during or after a workout, notify your doctor as a matter of urgency. Make staying healthy and keeping well your priority.

Article reviewed by Dr Rohit Khurana, cardiologist at Gleneagles Hospital

References

(March 2012) Factors Affecting Your Heart Rate. Retrieved on 15 January 2021 from https://activesalem.com/factors-affecting-heart-rate/

(February 2018) Cardiac (Heart) Screening. Retrieved on 15 January 2021 from https://www.radiologyinfo.org/en/info.cfm?pg=screening-cardiac

(August 2019) Exercise intensity: How to measure it. Retrieved on 15 January 2021 from https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/fitness/in-depth/exercise-intensity/art-20046887

(March 2020) How’s your heart rate and why it matters? Retrieved on 15 January from 2021https://www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/hows-your-heart-rate-and-why-it-matters

(January 2021) Pulse. Retrieved on 15 January 2021 from https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/003399.htm#