What Should My Heart Rate Be?
What is the target heart rate?
Your target heart rate is a range of beats per minute that helps you determine if you’re exercising at the right intensity.
Why is monitoring your heart rate important?
Many Team Beachbody workout programs are meant to take you through the correct heart-rate ranges automatically, from Recovery (for warming up and cooling down) through Aerobic (for extended cardio) through Threshold (for “extreme” workouts like P90X and Insanity).
But it still helps to know your personal target ranges—especially if you’re doing a continual cardio exercise where it’s easy to alter the intensity. It’s also important to know for interval training, in which you work out at a high intensity for a short time, then have a low-intensity recovery period.
A target heart-rate zone is a certain percentage of your maximum heart rate (Max HR), the highest number of times your heart can beat in one minute. Because the zones vary quite a bit from person to person, you can also decide what zone you’re in by the “perceived exertion” of an exercise. If you’re breathing a little hard but can talk easily, you’re probably in the Healthy Heart Zone. If you’re breathing very hard and can’t talk well, you’re probably in the Aerobic Zone. And if you can only gasp one word at a time, you’re probably in the Threshold Zone.
In the lower zones, you can train for longer periods of time. But, as you move up to higher-intensity zones, you need to decrease the amount of time that you spend at those levels, particularly in the top two (the Threshold and Redline Zones). Overdoing it increases the likelihood of injuries or burnout.
Heart Zones
| Your specific heart rate will depend on your workout intensity and your current level of fitness. For maximum weight-loss benefits, Beachbody recommends exercising at a high level of intensity. | ||
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| To monitor your heart rate while you exercise, use a Heart Rate Monitor by Reebok, now available from Team Beachbody. You can also get a general idea of your beats per minute without any equipment by taking your pulse for 15 seconds and multiplying by 4. | ||
| Zone Name | Percentage of Max HR | Percentage of Max HR |
| Z1 Healthy Heart Zone | 50%-60% | 2-5 (perceived exertion) |
| Z2 Temperate Zone | 60%-70% | 4-5 (perceived exertion) |
| Z3 Aerobic Zone | 70%-80% | 5-7 (perceived exertion) |
| Z4 Threshold Zone | 80%-90% | 7-9 (perceived exertion) |
| Z5 Redline Zone | 90%-100% | 9-10 (perceived exertion) |
