Are You Thinking About Target Heart Rate the Wrong Way?

One of the reasons even THINKING about your heart rate is so popular is because you can use heart rate over time to estimate calories burned.

There are around 3,500 calories in a lb of stored fat. If you know about how many calories you burned during your workout, you can figure out how much progress you're making, how to adjust your diet, and more.

It's motivating to look down after a long workout and see a number..."calories burned"...that represents your progress.

Lots of people do this:

• Figure out Base Metabolic Rate (that's how many calories you burn at rest)
• Use a heart rate monitor to track calories burned exercising
• Adjust diet according to total calories burned, leaving a calorie deficit

And that's a great strategy!

BUT...

If you're like me, you don't have time for a long, slow, calorie melting workout. So I stick to short, intense efforts that set up my body to burn more calories over time.

I'll show you how to do this in a minute.

For years, exercising within your target heart rate has been accepted as a standard training protocol, but I've got some news for you (you already know it):

Everyone is different.

Another thing:

"Target Heart Rate" depends on your workout goals.

Example:

The workouts I follow and teach are short with total body, high-intensity exercises that trigger a boost in calories burned at rest for long after the workout is over.

To get so much done in such a short amount of time, your target heart rate needs to be much higher than if you were just doing long, boring, steady state cardio.

Look at a treadmill and you'll see a "fat burning zone" heart rate printed right on it...

Know what I'm talking about?

This is super popular at just about every gym.

But that "heart rate chart" doesn't know (1) who you are OR (2) what your workout looks like.

The idea that you burn fat at a certain heart rate is a lie.

Every heart rate percentage is a fat burning zone. The "fat burning zone" heart rate you see on treadmills, elliptical machines, and stationary bikes is responsible for this myth...

General guidelines:

1. Longer exercise duration = lower heart rate. If you're following a long workout and your goal is to burn fat, stick to 50-60% of your heart rate.
2. Shorter exercise duration = higher heart rate. If you're using HIIT-focused, short workouts and your goal is to burn fat, you should be at 90+% max heart rate.

That's it. Don't pay attention to the heart rate chart on the treadmill.

I teach and follow HIIT-focused workouts that rely on higher intensity to trigger changes in the way your metabolism works. I prefer HIIT because I don't have 60+ minutes a day to exercise at lower intensities.

Now...

Lots of people hear: "You can burn more calories in 20 minutes with a HIIT-focused workout than with 60+ minutes of cardio."

And then they try HIIT workouts, but don't see ANY results.

One of the reasons is because they don't actually exercise with enough intensity for the workouts to work.

The key to HITT is short, high intensity, high heart rate efforts.

With the right combination of full body exercises, it's easy to get the heart rate required (and not as hard as you think). BUT, for HIIT intervals, you do need to have a heart rate MUCH higher than long cardio efforts in order to see fat burning results an the benefit of an increased base metabolic rate.

For high intensity interval training I suggest keeping heart rate around 90% or higher during intervals.

If you want to get an accurate rate so you can stop wasting time on exercises that don't work, then follow this method. You'll need a heart monitor and a stationary bike.

1. Spend five minutes warming up; you should be sweating lightly.
2. Bike intensely for four minutes. You should be too out of breath to talk.
3. Take rest by doing easy cycling for three minutes.
4. Bike for another two minutes as fast as you can or until you can't continue anymore.
5. Immediately check your heart rate. This will be your maximum heart rate.

The old formula is 220 minus your current age -- it's the one most people know. Unfortunately, this formula underestimates your maximum heart rate by up to 40 beats per minute.

The Norwegian University of Science and Technology came up with a new formula after testing how flawed the old one was. They came up with 211 - (0.64) x age. Knowing this becomes very important for us individuals in our mid 30s and 40s, as this is the stage where the old formula really becomes inaccurate.

While the new formula is much more accurate, it also showed some variation when reviewing the study. Therefore, the best way to calculate your maximum heart rate is to use this method.

Once you know your maximum heart rate, then you can really maximize your high intensity interval training exercises. You should be striving to workout at 80 to 90 percent your maximum heart rate.

If you're doing anything less than that, then you may not be fully benefiting from the workout and you won't be triggering increased post-exercise calorie burn.