Heartrate

So, your humble narrator is a bit of a n00b when it comes to ... Well, um, moving. With an Apple Watch connected to my iPhone and a copy of Cyclemeter, I have some solid insight into my commute to/from the office.

Heart rate info from Cyclemeter

Now, my maximum heartrate should be somewhere roughly in the range of 170–185 (the back of napkin formula is 220 - your age in years, so if you were, say, 37, max heart rate should be about 183). And for moderate intensity exercise they‡ say you should be shooting for 50-70% of that maximum. So, according to a cardiologist I know, that hypothetical 37 year old person should “try to stay close to 70% of max ~128 bpm. There is no advantage conditioning to push further and risk of injury goes up.” Even if training for a zombie apocalypse, I asked? “Won’t help.”

So, there we have it. I never even thought about it, really, before. I pushed to what felt “right” and like a workout, and my heart rate was an interesting bit of trivia. Now I’m trying to be more mindful when I exercise, and taking it a bit easier to keep my heart rate where it should be. It’s not really adding any time to my commute, and I’m riding solo so it’s not like I need to keep up with a group.

So now I know, and that’s 1/2 the battle.

Knowing is 1/2 the battle. The rest is red and blue lasers.

‡ Well, there’s several “theys,” with slightly different scales ... Johns Hopkins’ Understanding Your Target Heart Rate (sets a target heart rate of “between 50 percent and 85 percent” of maximum); American Heart Association’s Target Heart Rates Chart (also uses 50-85%); the Mayo Clinic has several formulae depending on exercise intensity.