Studies have shown that keeping your heart rate in this zone is the best for burning away fat. Even during warm up when you are at 50 to 60%, you are burning more fat calories. It is when you exceed 70% and stay below 80% of your maximum heart rate that you start burning less fat calories and rely more on your heart and lungs to keep you going. Although, you will still burn about 50% as fat calories while exercising at this level such as running.
Performance trainers take it to the next level and exercise at 80 to 90% of their maximum heart rate. At this level you are burning on 15% fat calories. Exceeding this level is red lining your heart and only the healthiest of people can maintain exercise at this level.
There is a basic way to calculate what your ideal exercise range is. Using a simple formula by taking a base rate of 220 for men and 226 for women. Subtract your age to get your maximum heart rate or MHR. For instance a 45 year old man would take 220 - 45 and get a MHR of 176. This would be your maximum red line. So the warm up zone would be 50% to 60% of the MHR or 88 to 105 beats per minute. The ideal fat burning zone, 60% to 70% would be 105 to 123 beats per minute.
A more complex formula for calculating your health heart zone for exercise is by taking your resting heart rate into account by using the Karvonen formula. Which is basically the same as the simple formula, however you take your resting heart rate RHR and subtract it from the MHR to get your Heart Rate Reserve or HRR. You then calculate your target range, warm up would be 50% to 60% of your HHR, then add the RHR back into the number or in the example above using a 45 year old man, 118 to 129 beats per minute.
Here is a simple summary:
| Simple method | |||||||
| Base | 220 | for men, 226 for women | |||||
| - Age | 44 | ||||||
| MHR = | 176 | ||||||
| Training Range | Bpm | ||||||
| 60% = | 105 | ||||||
| 70% = | 123 | ||||||
| 80% = | 140 | ||||||
| 90% = | 158 | ||||||
| 100%= | 176 | ||||||
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| Karvonen Formula for calculating target heart rates for exercise |
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| Sample target heart rate zones for a 44 year old man |
Target Heart Zone Summary:
Warm up --- 50 - 60% of maximum heart rate: The easiest zone and probably the best zone for people just starting a fitness program. It can also be used as a warm up for more serious walkers. This zone has been shown to help decrease body fat, blood pressure and cholesterol. It also decreases the risk of degenerative diseases and has a low risk of injury. 85% of calories burned in this zone are fats!
Fitness Zone (Fat Burning) --- 60 - 70% of maximum heart rate: This zone provides the same benefits as the healthy heart zone, but is more intense and burns more total calories. The percent of fat calories is still 85%.
Aerobic Zone (Endurance Training) --- 70 - 80% of maximum heart rate: The aerobic zone will improve your cardiovascular and respiratory system AND increase the size and strength of your heart. This is the preferred zone if you are training for an endurance event. More calories are burned with 50% from fat.
Anaerobic Zone (Performance Training) --- 80 - 90% of maximum heart rate: Benefits of this zone include an improved VO2 maximum (the highest amount of oxygen one can consume during exercise) and thus an improved cardio and respiratory system, and a higher lactate tolerance ability which means your endurance will improve and you'll be able to fight fatigue better. This is a high intensity zone burning more calories, 15 % from fat.
Red Line (Maximum Effort) --- 90 - 100% of maximum heart rate: Although this zone burns the highest number of calories, it is very intense. Most people can only stay in this zone for short periods. You should only train in this zone if you are in very good shape and have been cleared by a physician to do so.
If you don't want to do all the math, here is a relatively simple target heart rate calculator at About.com: Target Heart Rate Calculator
If you don't want to do all the math, here is a relatively simple target heart rate calculator at About.com: Target Heart Rate Calculator
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