What’s Your Heart Rate?

What’s Your Heart Rate?

Your heart rate, also known as your pulse, is the number of times your heart
beats per minute. Your fitness evaluation should include a measure of your resting heart rate — your heart rate when you’re sitting still. Ideally, your resting heart rate should be between 60 and 90 beats per minute. It may be slower if you’re fit or genetically predisposed to a low heart rate; it may be faster if you’re nervous or have recently downed three double cappuccinos. In addition to caffeine, stress and certain medications can speed up your heart rate.

To be sure, take your heart rate first thing in the morning for three consecutive days and find the average to determine your heart rate.
After a month or two of regular exercise, your resting heart rate usually
drops. This means that your heart has become more efficient. It may need to
beat only 80 times per minute to pump the same amount of blood (or more)
than it used to pump in 90 beats. In the long run, this saves wear and tear on
your heart.

The simplest place to take your own pulse is at your wrist. Rest your middle
and index fingertips (not your thumb) lightly on your opposite wrist, directly
below the base of your thumb. Most people can see the faint bluish line of
their radial artery; place your fingertips here. Count the beats for 1 minute.
Or, if you have a short attention span, count for 30 seconds and multiply by 2.
For a really, really short attention span, count for 6 seconds and multiply by
10. An even easier and faster way to measure your pulse is to strap on a
heart-rate monitor, an extremely useful gadget we describe in next article .