Health Sessions

Basics of Heart Rate Training -

It is very essential to know what is the best way to exercise to keep the heart in a healthy condition. Heart Rate Training helps in tracking the heart's performance, improving it and avoiding over-training. It can best be done with the help of Heart Rate Monitors. With training, an individual gets to know his realistic level at which he can exercise his heart to be in good condition and avoid over-exercising the heart.

More about Heart Rate Training and Training Zones-

Do You Have the Heart?

The awareness of heart disease is on rise. But that does not mean that we have fewer people with heart diseases. While more and more people are changing their lifestyles towards better health, we are still not a perfectly healthy society.
There are some factors that we cannot impact at all. These definitely have a bearing on the condition of your heart. These are:

You're Gender
Women can die of heart disease than any other diseases like cancer. But men have a higher degree of life-long risk of heart disease. They are therefore likely to experience an attack early on in life.

Baby's heart within womb starts beating around fifth week of pregnancy. Average fetal heart rate ranges between 110 and 160 beats per minute. This is much faster than an adult heart rate, which ranges from 60-100 beats per minute. Changes in the fetal heart rate, which occur with contractions, form a pattern. Baby's heart rate increases with mother's movement and with uterine contractions. Baby's heart rate may drop during a contraction but return to normal immediately following the end of the contraction. A normal fetal heart rate ranges from 110 to 160 beats per minute and can vary within this range. Sometimes mother's position is compressing umbilicus so ask her to change her position and then check fetal heart rate.

What are Heart Rate Monitors?

A device usually worn like a watch and consists of a chest strap and a wrist receiver, used to monitor the heart rate during exercise. The reading shows the hearts beats per minute. They are used as a tool for fitness training. Earlier used only by athletes, they are being used by general public as well. They show accurate pulse rate and an exercise regimen can be planned accordingly. The simplest models of heart rate monitors just measure the heart rate while the more advanced models download data to a PC, record the same in a program that analyzes the heart rate pattern and based on it, design workout programs.

A heart rate monitor is a device that allows a user to monitor heart rate during exercising. It usually consists of two elements, a chest strap and a wrist receiver.Human bodies build endurance and speed at specific exertion levels. Exertion level is measured by heart rates. Strapping on a heart rate monitor can keep person within the correct level of exertion, 100% of the time, so that person does not end up wasting energy. Working out in anaerobic zone helps raise anaerobic threshold (AT) the point at which the oxygen supply to muscles starts to lag and lactic acid begins to build up. A higher anaerobic threshold allows to run harder and faster without excess lactic acid buildup.

Knowing about Heart Rate Variability -

The variability in the heart rate is usually measured in terms of 'Heart Rate Variability' (HRV in short). The time series of beat-to-beat intervals from ECG or arterial pressure tracings are analyzed and then HRV can be calculated.

How does music influence Heart Rate Variability?

What is heart rate?

Very simply, your heart rate is the number of times your heart beats per minute. You can measure your heart rate by feeling your pulse - the rhythmic expansion and contraction (or throbbing) of an artery as blood is forced through it by the regular contractions of the heart. It is a measure of how hard your heart is working. Your pulse can be felt at the wrist, neck, groin or top of the foot - areas where the artery is close to the skin. Most commonly, people measure their pulse in their wrist. This is called the radial pulse.

Types of heart rates:

A heart rate is a count of heart beats in a minute. Heart rate affects the functioning of heart. A normal heart rate indicates a healthy cardiovascular system. Many factors such as heart diseases, physical activity, stress or heart disorders can cause high heart rate. There are three types of heart rates that can be measured at different activity levels that show proper functioning of the heart. One is the normal resting heart rate, second is the working heart rate and last is the recovery heart rate. These heart rates determine and help the control of stress or activities to bring the count of heart rate to normal to ensure good health.

Quick review of both the terms - Heart Rate and Blood Pressure -

The rate at which the heart expands and contracts every minute is measured in terms of Beats Per Minute (BPM) and is used to evaluate a person's general health.

The pressure that the blood exerts on the walls of the arteries while pumped by the heart is termed as 'Blood Pressure' and is expressed as a ratio. Normally, it is 120/80 where the first number represents the pressure at which the heart pumps the blood into the arteries and the second number represents the pressure when the heart is resting.

If you want a Heart Rate Monitor that is not too complex, but can also be worn as an eye-catching sports watch, the Nike Heart Rate monitor is just for you. The Nike Heart Rate Monitor is a water defiant sports watch with nonstop heart rate monitoring. The Nike HRM also provides the wearer with a synopsis of total exercise time passing through a simple to operate chronograph. These units are heart rate companionable with most popular makes of CV gym equipment. It features every part of the standard watch functions, plus an ECG accurate heart rate monitor with heart zone alarms. If you do not want to be confused with too many bells and whistles and just want the indispensable heart rate zone alarm, with memory recall, the Nike heart rate monitor is the ideal Heart Rate Monitor for you. The Nike C series are average sized and will fit for the most part of female and male wrist sizes.

Maximum heart rate generally declines with age from about 220 beats per minute in childhood to about 160 beats per minute at age 60. This fall in heart rate is fairly linear decreasing by approximately 1 beat per minute per year. There is no strong evidence to suggest that training influences the decline in max heart rate. It should be remembered that individuals of the same age might have quite different max heart rates-therefore it is more accurate to calculate this value by undergoing a stress-test than by using an age-related formula, resting heart rate is greatly influenced by endurance training.

The heart rate monitor is a component or a device that permits a user to scrutinize or monitor their heart rate whilst exercising. It generally consists of two elements, a chest strap and a wrist receiver. The wrist receiver usually doubles as a watch. The heart rate monitors without straps are also available as well, which do not require a chest strap, but lack some of the functionality of the original design. Highly developed models furthermore measure heart rate variability to assess the fitness of the user.

History of heart rate monitor:

The heart rate is a term used to describe the frequency of the cardiac cycle. It is considered one of the four vital signs. Usually it is calculated as the number of contractions (heart beats) of the heart in one minute and expressed as "beats per minute" (bpm). Heart for information on embryo fetal heart rates. When resting, the adult human heart beats at about 70 bpm (males) and 75 bpm (females), but this rate varies between people. However, the reference range is nominally between 60 bpm (if less termed bradycardia) and 100 bpm (if greater, termed tachycardia). The Resting heart rates can be significantly lower in athletes, and significantly higher in the obese.

A heart rate monitor as the name suggests is used for monitoring the heart rate at all times of the day. A simple device that accurately measures your heart rate while you are working out or burning calories while exercising, a heart rate monitor helps to prevent overdoing any physical activity that can actually cause harm to your heart. People with heart problems also find heart rate monitors useful.

Heart Rate Monitors

Heart rate:

Heart rates are monitored to indicate how the heart is working. Any changes in the heart rate can determine causes of major illness or heart diseases which need to be cured. Also heart rate monitoring helps maintain good health and proper functioning of the heart by noting the monitored figures. This ensures safety, effective workouts and a strong and healthy cardiovascular system. There are three different types of heart rates namely resting heart rate, working heart rate and recovery heart rate.

What is recovery heart rate?