What are Exercise Heart Rate Zones and How Do They Influence Our Workouts?

During exercise, you may have encountered your fitness band flashing to hit your “target exercise heart rate zones”. This leaves you perplexed as to what that means, and what you’re doing wrong. But there’s no need to panic.

We’re here to break out what are exercise heart rate zones, and how to make use of them as per the workout goals you are looking forward to.

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What You Need to Know About ‘Exercise Heart Rate Zones’

Lower-Intensity, Temperate and Aerobic are the three main exercise heart rate zones (Image by Drazen Zigic on Freepik)

Your Maximum Heart Rate (MHR) is the highest number of heartbeats per minute your heart can reach during working out. The ‘Exercise Heart Rate Zones’ are all based on MHR only, and are divided on the basis of percentages of this maximum heart rate.

There are mainly three exercise heart rate zones, which are explained below.

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1. Lower-Intensity Zone

When your heart rate is between 50 to 60 percent of your MHR, then you’re said to be working out in the “Lower-Intensity Heart Rate Zone”. Since your heart rate is way behind its maximum value, you are able to sustain in this zone for a longer period of time without getting exhausted. That makes this heart rate zone ideal for endurance training.

You should keep in mind that lower-intensity zone workout sessions are preferable for people whose main aim is fat-burning. This is because the calories you’re burning in this exercise heart rate zone are 85 percent fat.

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2. Temperate Zone

Exercising at 60 to 70 percent of your maximum heart rate signifies the “Temperate Heart Rate Zone”. Of the number of calories burned during a workout session of this heart rate zone, 65 percent are fat.

Therefore, the temperate heart rate zone offers an adequate balance between fat-burning and overall calorie expenditure.

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3. Aerobic Zone

At a heart rate of 70 to 80 percent of your MHR, you’re said to enter the “Aerobic Heart Rate Zone”. Due to very high heart activity, this heart rate zone is sustainable only for a short period of time. Moreover, exhaustion is also observed more quickly than in other zones.

In this heart rate zone, the calories you’re burning comprise 45 percent fat. Thus, it is not considered to be the most appropriate exercise heart rate zone for people who are aiming to burn fat rapidly.

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Which Heart Rate Zone to Choose for Workout?

Lower-intensity workouts are easier to start with and increase the stamina gradually with higher fat-burning percentage (Image by ArthurHidden on Freepik)

In the lower-intensity zone, the body takes up a good amount of oxygen, so fat-oxidation rates are higher, which results in a greater proportion of burned calories being fat. But in aerobic zones, the levels of oxygen in the body aren’t sufficient to cause fat oxidation to produce energy. Thus, the body relies on carbohydrate breakdown for energy production.

You should keep in mind that fats are long-lasting sources of energy, which are essential for prolonged workouts. On the other hand, carbohydrates aren’t that good energy producers, which is why our body gets exhausted pretty fast in aerobic zone workouts.

Therefore, the exercise heart rate zone you need to choose depends on your fitness goals. If you’re new to exercising, start with lower-intensity heart rate zone workouts to build up stamina and increase endurance. As you see improvement, you can switch to higher-intensity workouts which lie in higher heart rate zones.

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How To Measure Your Target Heart Rate Zone

Heart rates can be measured easily using fitness bands and other special exercising equipment (Image by Wayhomestudio on Freepik)

Determining the Maximum Heart Rate (MHR) is the first step in developing a workout routine based on exercise heart rate zones. For MHR, you simply have to subtract your current age from 220, for example - if you're 28 years old, then the average MHR value would be 220-28 = 192bpm.

After knowing the MHR, you can find out the percentage heart rate required for a particular exercise heart rate zone, like 50-60 percent for the lower-intensity zone, 60-70 percent for the temperate zone, and 70-80 percent for the aerobic zone. Then multiply this percentage by your MHR value to get the value of heartbeats per minute you need to have while working out.

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Concluding the article, we observed how exercise heart rate zones are an interesting way of finding out the capacity at which your heart needs to work in different exercise routines. It also helps to determine the type of fuel being used by our body during workout, which subsequently helps to determine what exercise heart rate zone to opt for as per our fitness goals.