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Inspire Fitness Guide to Exercising Safely
It’s important when embarking on an exercise regime to set realistic targets and to work within your capability. Don’t expect to be running a marathon after one week of training or to have achieved the perfect body in no time. You need to be sensible about how you go about getting fit and losing weight. We recommend that you always work within your target heart rate zone and for that you need a Polar compatible machine and a chest strap (heart rate monitor). You can find the full range of heart rate monitors and watches:
The following briefly outlines the benefits.
What is a Heart Rate Monitor?
A heart rate monitor picks up your heart rate and displays it on the watch unit. The most effective way to reach your exercise and weight loss goal is to exercise in your target heart rate zone.
Weight Loss
To maximise weight loss, exercise intensity needs to be varied. With a Polar heart rate monitor you can control and monitor the intensity of your exercise. Most Polar heart rate monitors show you how many calories you have burned – great for motivation.
Improved Fitness
Polar heart rate monitors have a number of features to help you increase your fitness levels. Look out for the Polar Keeps U Fit programme which gives you personal guidance on how often, how long and how hard you need to exercise to reach your personal fitness goals. In addition, there are running and cycling specific products with speed and distance features combined with heart rate to provide you with all the feedback you need to take your fitness to the next level.
Performance Gains
If you are serious about your training and want to maximise your performance, look out for products with features such as Polar Sport Zones, Polar OwnOptimizer and products with Polar ProTrainer 5 software which enables you to plan and create training sessions and analyse your training data in detail.
Exercise Intensity Guide
The following table shows the Polar Exercise Zones – you can use it as a guideline for heart rate based training:
|
Target Zone
|
% of Max
Heart rate
|
Example Duration
|
Training Benefit
|
|
Hard
|
80-90%
|
5 – 20 mins
|
Benefits: Increase aerobic exercise capacity and speed endurance
Feels Like: Muscular fatigue and heavy breathing
Recommended For: Shorter exercise sessions to elevate fitness levels
|
|
Moderate
|
70-80%
|
20 – 60 mins
|
Benefits: Improves aerobic fitness
Feels Like: Light muscular fatigue, faster breathing, moderate sweating
Recommended For: Moderately long exercise sessions to improve cardiovascular fitness
|
|
Light
|
60-70%
|
30 – 90 mins
|
Benefits: Improves basic endurance and recovery
Feels Like: Comfortable, easy breathing, low muscle load, light sweating
Recommended For: Longer exercise sessions to improve endurance and shorter sessions to enhance recovery.
|
To calculate your maximum heart rate then use the following formula:
HRMax=220 – Age
We hope that this information helps, but please remember that this is only a guide and you should always consult a doctor before embarking on any fitness regime.