| By :
Roger Brown
If you use watches with pulse applications you are in a great position to get minute by minute information about how well you're doing in your workout. Many of these watch products that you can purchase also have notices you can set to let you know if you're reaching heart rate levels that you have set goals to reach. You can't trust the watch totally though. The reason for that is it presents just one dimension of your workout. The other dimension that you have to keep in mind is your feeling about your general health during the activity. Your feel for whether you are taxing yourself too much or not enough is a piece of information you need to integrate with knowledge of what your actual pulse rate is during the exercise. How do you calculate your maximum beats per minute? This is the beginning point for all of the rest of the analysis. You've got to know what your maximum heart rate is in order to gauge the intensity of any workout. A good beginning point is to take the number 220 and subtract your age from that. Using that formula is good for males and not for females, however. Women should use the number 206 to subtract your age from, meaning women will work out a lower pulse rate than men, given the same age. That means as you age your pulse rate maximum will go down. It very much just depends on the type of activity that you are engaged in, but knowing your maximum heart rate is essential for gauging the intensity of your workouts. How can you get the most out of your workout and actually burn body fat with a heart rate watch? In general, authorities that study these subjects agree that a moderate intensity workout is the best for burning excess body fat. That is to say that anywhere in the 50 to 70% range of your MHR is going to be the correct zone for getting rid of the fat. So, to pick a number, 65% of their max is a good target for most people. The great thing about watches with pulse functionality is you can use them to monitor where you are during your workout and make sure that you are staying in the proper zone to achieve the results you want to achieve. You can actually optimize the time that you spend in the gym by making sure that you are staying within the optimal heart rate zone for longer periods of time. In contrast to losing body fat, striving for the best overall health with watches with pulse rate monitoring will require a slightly higher pulse rate - more on the level of 80% of your MHR. It's hard to sustain your pulse at that level for a long period of time though. You should be content with short bursts that allow you to operate at that level and then gradually build to longer and longer time periods.
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