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Healthy Happy Holidays Helping You Through The Holidays
How Hard are You Working Out? While you are working out, it is important to know how hard you are working out, or the intensity of your workout. Here are some options for determining what your intensity level is. Heart Rate Monitors
What are Heart Rate Monitors? 1. Heart rate can be used to monitor how hard you are working during an activity (i.e. exercise intensity), and to track changes in fitness level. 2. The heart rate monitor (HRM) provides a convenient method for measuring and recording heart rate during exercise. 3. The use of a HRM to determine exercise intensity is based on the following physiological principal: as exercise intensity increases, oxygen consumption (VO2) and heart rate increase. 4. A HRM consists of a watch that is worn on your wrist, and a transmitter that you wear against your skin, around your chest. The electrodes in the transmitter pick up signals from your heart and send them wirelessly to the watch. These signals are continuously displayed.
How Do I Integrate a HRM Into My Exercise Program? 1. Determine your maximum heart rate: (220-age), or some HRMs have a feature to predict your maximal heart rate based on additional information. 2. Find the specific target training zone (high and low heart rate) which will guide you to exercise at the right intensity: Key Target Training Zones (% of max HR): 60-70%: Low intensity exercise. 70-80%: Medium intensity exercise. 80% +: High intensity exercise. 3. A HRM can be worn while participating in almost any physical activity: Walking/ running, skating, biking, rowing, etc. Most models are waterproof enough for swimming, though not for diving.
Healthy Happy Holidays Helping You Through The Holidays What are Some HRM features? 1. Watch 2. Target training zone 3. Stopwatch 4. Lap timer/ splits 5. Alarm 6. Memory 7. Recovery rate 8. Calories burned 9. Backlight 10. Computer link 11. Prediction of maximal aerobic capacity (VO2max) 12. Prediction of maximal heart rate
What Factors Affect Heart Rate? 1. Stress 2. Illness 3. Overtraining & fatigue 4. Medications 5. Time of day 6. Food and/or drink (i.e. caffeine); nutritional 7. Altitude 8. Body temperature 9. Hydration levels 10. Weather conditions and/or ambient temperature Rate of Perceived Exertion
Instructions for Rating of Perceived Exertion (RPE) Scale While doing physical activity, we want you to rate your perception of exertion. This feeling should reflect how heavy and strenuous the exercise feels to you, combining all sensations and feelings of physical stress, effort, and fatigue. Do not concern yourself with any one factor such as leg pain or shortness of breath, but try to focus on your total feeling of exertion. Look at the rating scale below while you are engaging in an activity; it ranges from 6 to 20, where 6 means "no exertion at all" and 20 means "maximal exertion." Choose the number from below that best describes your level of exertion. This will give you a good idea of the intensity level of your activity, and you can use this information to speed up or slow down your movements to reach your desired range. Try to appraise your feeling of exertion as honestly as possible, without thinking about what the actual physical load is. Your own feeling of effort and exertion is important, not how it compares to other people's. Look at the scales and the expressions and then give a number.
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13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20 Maximal Exertion
12
Very Hard
11
Hard (Heavy)
10
Somewhat Hard
9
Very Light
Extremely light
8
Light
7
No exertion at all
6
Extremely Hard
Helping You Through The Holidays
9 corresponds to "very light" exercise. For a healthy person, it is like walking slowly at his or her own pace for some minutes 13 on the scale is "somewhat hard" exercise, but it still feels OK to continue. 17 "very hard" is very strenuous. A healthy person can still go on, but he or she really has to push him- or herself. It feels very heavy, and the person is very tired. 19 on the scale is an extremely strenuous exercise level. For most people this is the most strenuous exercise they have ever experienced.
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5
6
7
Light
Somewhat Hard
Moderately Hard
Hard
8
9
10 Extremely Hard
4
Very, Very Hard
3
Very Hard
2
Fairly Light
Very, Very Light
1
Very Light
A simpler version of the RPE Scale, which most individuals find easier to remember is
The "somewhat hard" rating of 5 corresponds to approximately 70 percent of maximum heart rate, and the "hard" rating of 7 corresponds to approximately 85 percent of maximum heart rate.
Talk Test The Talk Test is another self-assessment of physical activity intensity that correlates well to heart-rate levels. During aerobic (endurance) physical activity, individuals can self-administer the Talk Test by saying a few sentences out loud. If the person can easily talk (or sing!) and is not the least bit out of breath, he is being active at an extremely low intensity. On the other hand, if an individual is so out of breath that she cannot say a few sentences, she is being active at an extremely high intensity (probably too high). As with the other methods, the individual can compare the assessed intensity with the target intensity, and adjust the effort if desired.
