What Your HeartBeat Says About Your Health

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Heart-rate myth: high exercising heart rate

Popular belief: A high exercising heart rate means you’re working hard.

Reality: This is true most of the time, but there are exceptions. Exercisers taking beta blockers or other medications may be unable to raise their heart rates above a certain point.

For this reason, using a combination of heart rate along with a scale measuring rate of perceived exertion, may be more accurate, says Richard Cotton of the American College of Sports Medicine. The scale of perceived exertion appraises your feeling of effort in exercising from 1 to 10, with 1 being no effort, 3 being a walk for exercise, 7 being a hard run if you’re not used to it, and 10 being the point of exhaustion.

By assessing your perceived exertion and taking your heart rate regularly, you can arrive at an appropriate exercising heart-rate target.

A caution for athletes is that exercising for long periods of time creates “cardiovascular drift,” which is a higher-than-normal heart rate due to dehydration.