Working out and getting proper exercise is incredibly important to staying fit.  If you exercise three or more times a week, you’re already doing far better than 90% of Americans.  However, you may or may not be working out as efficiently and effectively as you possibly can.  Through tracking your heart rate, you can easily tell exactly how hard you’re working your body and if you should be working it harder or easier in order to reach the goals that you want.

I’m sure some of you wondering how knowing your heart rate can possibly help you understand how effective you workouts are.  Well, this is because there are different zones for your heart rate depending on what your workout goals are.  For example, staying in the first zone will help train your body to start burning fat, but won’t actually burn that many calories or get rid of that much fat.  If you go into the next zone up, commonly called the fat burning zone, over 85% of the calories that you burn will be from fat.  Just making the simple adjustment in the intensity of the workout can actually double or triple the amount of fact that you burn during the exact same period of time!

But how you track your heart rate?  Well, there are all kinds of different ways, some much easier and more useful in others.  If you wanted to, you could take your index in your middle finger and put them on your carotid artery; then simply count the number of beats that occur in 60 seconds.  However, this method will take some practice and takes a little bit more time than most people will spend.  A slightly faster way is to count the number of beats in 10 seconds, and then simply multiply by six.  While that way is slightly faster, it’s also obviously not as accurate.  You can also use the same technique on your wrist if you have trouble finding the artery in your neck, but again this can take some practice.

By far the fastest and easiest way to keep track of your heart rate is to simply buy a heart rate monitor.  These monitor your rate while you work out and keep you informed of what your rate is.  Many of them even tell you what zone you are in and how long you have been in it!  However, not all are created equally.  Some monitors are strapped around the chest, some are strapped around the chest and paired with a watch, and then there even some that are just a watch.  Some are even so technologically advanced you can download the summary of your work out to a computer and track your progress as your circulatory system becomes more efficient from your exercise regimen!  Really the only downside is price, as they can be somewhat expensive.  However, if you’re serious about being fit or losing weight, they pay for themselves in just a few weeks.  Just make sure to do your research about which monitor you decide to get!

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