Medically Reviewed by James Beckerman, MD, FACC on April 30, 2020 Your heart rate, or pulse, is the number of times your heart beats in 1 minute. Heart rates vary from person to person. It’s lower when you’re at rest and higher when you exercise. Knowing how to find your pulse can help you figure out your best exercise program. If you’re taking heart medications, recording your pulse daily and reporting the results to your doctor can help them learn whether your treatment is working. Blood pressure vs. heart rate Your heart rate is separate from your blood pressure. That’s the force of your blood against the walls of your blood vessels. A faster pulse doesn’t necessarily mean higher blood pressure. When your heart speeds up, like when you exercise, your blood vessels should expand to let more blood pass through. There are a few places on your body where it’s easier to take your pulse: Put the tips of your index and middle fingers on your skin. Press lightly until you feel the blood pulsing beneath your fingers. You may need to move your fingers around until you feel it. Count the beats you feel for 10 seconds. Multiply this number by six to get your heart rate (or pulse) per minute Other than exercise, things that can affect your heart rate include: A normal resting heart rate is usually between 60 and 100 beats per minute. Your number may vary. Children tend to have higher resting heart rates than adults. The best time to measure your resting heart rate is just after you wake up in the morning, before you start moving around or have any caffeine. In general, people who are more fit and less stressed are more likely to have a lower resting heart rate. A few lifestyle changes can help you slow it down: Your maximum heart rate is, on average, the highest your pulse can get. One way to get a rough estimate of your predicted maximum is to subtract your age from the number 220. For example, a 40-year-old's predicted maximum heart rate is about 180 beats per minute. You can learn your actual maximum heart rate with a graded exercise test. If you’re taking medicines or have a medical condition such as heart disease, high blood pressure, or diabetes, ask your doctor whether you should adjust your exercise plan to keep your heart rate under a specific number. You get the most benefits when you exercise in your ''target heart rate zone.'' Usually, this is when your heart rate (pulse) is 60% to 80% of your maximum. In some cases, your doctor may decrease your target heart rate zone to around 50%. Check with your doctor before starting an exercise program. They can help you find a routine and target heart rate zone that match your needs, goals, and overall health. When you start an exercise program, you may need to slowly build up to your target heart rate zone, especially if you haven’t exercised regularly before. If the exercise feels too hard, slow down. You’ll lower your risk of injury and enjoy the exercise more if you don't try to overdo it. When you exercise, take a break and check your pulse regularly to find out whether you’re in your target zone. If your pulse is below your target zone, step up the intensity of your workout. Age Target Heart Rate (HR) Zone (60%-80%) Predicted Maximum Heart Rate 20 120-170 200 25 117-166 195 30 114-162 190 35 111-157 185 40 108-153 180 45 105-149 175 50 102-145 170 55 99-140 165 60 96-136 160 65 93-132 155 70 90-128 150 Your Actual Values: Target HR: Max. HR:
A physical pursuit from Science Buddies Key concepts The heart Heart rate Health Exercise Introduction Background Exercise that is good for your heart should elevate your heart rate. But by how much, for how long and how often should your heart rate be elevated? This has to do with how fit you are and your maximum heart rate, which, for adults, is about 220 beats per minute (bpm) minus your age. For example, if you are 30 years old, your maximum heart rate would be 190 bpm. The American Heart Association (AHA) recommends doing exercise that increases a person's heart rate to between 50 to 85 percent of their maximum heart rate. This range is called the target heart rate zone. The AHA recommends a person gets at least 30 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise—exercise that elevates their heart rate to the target heart rate zone—on most days of the week, or a total of about 150 minutes a week. Materials • Scrap piece of paper • Pen or pencil • Clock or timer that shows seconds or a helper with a watch • Comfortable exercise clothes (optional) • Simple and fun exercise equipment, such as a jump rope, bicycle, hula-hoop, two-pound weight, etc. Alternatively you can do exercises that do not require equipment, such as walking, doing jumping jacks, jogging in place, etc. You will want to do at least two different types of exercises, both of which you can sustain for 15 minutes. (Remember to always stop an exercise if you feel faint.) • Calculator Preparation • Practice finding your pulse. Use the first two fingers of one hand to feel your radial pulse on the opposite wrist. You should find your radial pulse on the "thumb side" of your wrist, just below the base of your hand. Practice finding your pulse until you can do it quickly. (You can alternatively take your carotid pulse to do this activity, but be sure you know how to safely take it and press on your neck only very lightly with your fingers.) • Measure your resting heart rate, which is your heart rate when you are awake but relaxed, such as when you have been lying still for several minutes. To do this, take your pulse when you have been resting and multiply the number of beats you count in 10 seconds by six. This will give you your resting heart rate in beats per minute (bpm). What is your resting heart rate? Write it on a scrap piece of paper. • You will be measuring your heart rate during different types of physical exercises over a period of 15 minutes. Choose at least two different exercises. Some examples include jumping rope, lifting a two-pound weight, riding a bike, hula-hooping, walking, etc. Gather any needed materials. (If you want to make a homemade hula-hoop, steps for doing this are given in the activity Swiveling Science: Applying Physics to Hula-Hooping .) Do you think the activities will affect your heart rate differently? How do you think doing each activity will affect your heart rate? Procedure • Choose which exercise you want to do first. Before starting it, make sure you have been resting for a few minutes so that your heart is at its resting heart rate. • Perform the first exercise for 15 minutes. While you do this, write down the number of beats you count in 10 seconds after one, two, five, 10 and 15 minutes of activity. (You want to quickly check your pulse because it can start to slow within 15 seconds of stopping exercising.) How do the number of beats you count change over time? How did you feel by the end of the exercise? • Calculate your heart rate after one, two, five, 10 and 15 minutes of exercise by multiplying the number of beats you counted (in 10 seconds) by six. How did your heart rate (in bpm) change over time? • Repeat this process for at least one other exercise. Leave enough time between the exercises so that your heart rate returns to around its normal resting level (this should only take a few minutes). How did you feel by the end of the second exercise? How did your heart rate change over time for this exercise? • Take a look at the results you wrote down for this activity. Which exercise increased your heart rate the most? Which exercise increased your heart rate the fastest? Which exercise(s) elevated your heart rate to the target heart rate zone (50 to 85 percent of your maximum heart rate, where your maximum heart rate is 220 bpm minus your age)? Do you notice any consistent patterns in your results? • Extra: Try this activity again but test different physical exercises. How does your heart rate change when you do other exercises? How are the changes similar and how are they different? • Extra: Measure your heart rate while lying down, while sitting down, and while standing. How does your heart rate change with body position? • Extra: Repeat this activity with other healthy volunteers. How does their heart rate compare to yours? How does their change in heart rate while exercising compare to how yours changed? • Extra: Try this activity again but vary the intensity of your exercise. What intensity level elevates your heart rate to 50 percent of its maximum heart rate? What about nearly 85 percent of its maximum? Be sure not to exceed your recommended target heart rate zone while exercising! Observations and results After just a minute of exercise, did you see your heart rate reach its target heart rate zone? Did it initially jump higher for a more strenuous exercise, like hula-hooping, compared to a more moderately intense exercise, such as walking? If you did a moderately intense exercise, such as walking, you may have seen an initial jump in your heart rate (where your heart rate falls within the lower end of your target heart rate zone within about one minute of exercise), but then your heart rate only slowly increased after that. After 15 minutes, you may have reached the middle of your target heart rate zone. To reach the upper end, people usually need to do a moderately intense exercise for a longer amount of time (such as for 30 minutes). If you did a more strenuous exercise—hula-hooping, for example—you may have seen a higher initial bump in your heart rate (such as reaching the middle of your target heart rate zone after just one minute of exercise), and then your heart rate stayed about the same for the remaining 14 minutes of exercise. Overall doing a more strenuous exercise generally raises a person's heart rate faster compared to doing an exercise that is only moderately intense. 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