Heart rate is the measure of the beating of the heart per minute. The normal healthy resting heart rate of an adult is 60 to 90 BPM.
What is a heart rate?
Heart rate is the measure of the heartbeat, number of contractions of the heart per minute (bpm).
Heart rate is the number indicating a number of time’s heart beats (contract to pump blood) per minute. Heart rate is measured by counting the number of pulse per minute. The unit of measurement for the heartbeat is "Beats per minute" (BPM). The healthy resting heart rate in adults is 60 to 90 beats per minute. The heartbeats below 60 are referring to bradycardia and rates above 100 are referring as tachycardia.
What factors determine your heart rate?
The obvious purpose of the heartbeat is to push blood throughout the body. The rate of the heartbeat is a factor influence cardiac output, the volume of blood, and speed of delivery of blood to every body cell. There are certain situations when the blood requires reaching cells more or less quickly.
Physical activity (or exercise), just standing up from resting can increase the cellular requirement for both oxygen and blood nutrients (particular glucose). Sensors located in the brain stem and hypothalamus is responsible for the feedback regulation of the heart rate to meet the demands of your body cells. Relaxation and sleeping states require minimal cellular requirements.
There are individual differences in the resting heart rate, which can influence by genetics, sex (females have faster heart rates than males), and state of health. These differences are related to personality, psychology and physical fitness.
Maximum heart rate
The maximum heart rate is the maximum number of beats (heart contracts) during one-minute. It is a useful tool to measure or predict the exercise level. It is a good practice to monitor your heart rate while doing exercises to confirm you are staying within a safe range or use it to monitor how well your exercise raises your heart rate to acceptable ranges.
Based on your age and physical condition, a formula is in use to calculate your maximum heart rate. This method uses an age-predicted maximum heart rate formula:
- For Women: 226 - Age
- For Men: 220 - Age
Example: If you are a 40-years woman, your age related maximum heart rate will be 226- 40 years = 186 BPM (beats per minute), for a man with same age 220 - 40 = 180 BPM.
Physical activity and your Target Heart Rate
Based on your age, pulse rate during exercise should be within 60 to 85 percent of your maximum heart rate.
- At age 20, the target heart rate is 120 to 170.
- At age 25, the target heart rate is 117 to 166.
- At age 30, the target heart rate is 114 to 162.
- At age 35, the target heart rate is 111 to 157.
- At age 40, the target heart rate is 108 to 153.
- At age 45, the target heart rate is 105 to 149.
- At age 50, the target heart rate is 102 to 145.
- At age 55, the target heart rate is 99 to 140.
- At age 60, the target heart rate is 96 to 136.
- At age 65, the target heart rate is 93 to 132.
- At age 70, the target heart rate is 93 to 123.