1. Heart Rate

2. What is Heart Rate?
Heart rate is the number of times the heart beats per minute.
You can measure your heart rate like this:
Place your first finger and second fingers on the artery on the underside of your wrist
Using a stopwatch, count the number of pulses in 60 seconds.
You can also use a heart rate monitor to measure heart rate.

3. What is Heart Rate measured in?
Heart rate is measured in ‘beats per minute’ (bpm)
Doing exercise makes the heart beat faster.
Heart rate can show the intensity (how hard) a sports performer is working at.
The higher the heart rate, the greater the intensity of the exercise.

4. Working out maximum heart rate
Maximum heart rate is the highest number of times that the heart can beat in one minute.
Maximum heart rate is also called HR Max.
You can estimate a person’s maximum heart rate using this equation:
HR max = 220 – age(years)
What is your HR max? – show your working!

5. Heart Rate Training Zones
A sports performer needs good Cardiovascular health and fitness
To do this they need to increase their training intensity
This means they need to increase their heart rate
The heart rate should be in a target zone

6. Heart Rate Target Zone
To develop Cardiovascular Health and Fitness, the target zone is:
60% - 85% of your maximum heart rate
This means that there are 2 thresholds:
60% of Max HR = lower threshold
85% of Max HR = upper threshold
You have to train within these 2 thresholds to improve your cardiovascular fitness.

7. Working Out Target Zones (Use a calculator!)
1. Calculate HR Max (220-age) 2. Find the lower training threshold HR Max x Find the upper training threshold HR Max x Write down the target zone (lower threshold to the upper threshold)