This could be a game-changer for your workouts: You may be targeting the wrong heart rate while exercising, according to a new study presented at the American College of Cardiology's annual scientific session.
Doctors have always used the formula "220 minus age" to measure peak heart rate (as in, the maximum beats per minute a person's heart should race during a workout) when testing a person's heart condition. That formula is also used on exercise machines (such as the treadmill) to suggest a target heart rate.
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However, researchers believed this equation was outdated—it was derived from a 1970s study that barely included women, says Thomas Allison, Ph.D., the director of stress tests at the Mayo Clinic and author of this new study. So he and his co-authors analyzed stress tests of more than 25,000 patients ages 40 to 89 between 1993 and 2006 to see if a newer measurement system was needed—and as it turns out, men's and women's maximum heart rates should be calculated with different formulas.
Because the old study primarily involved male participants, the men's new formula is relatively similar to the old one: 216 minus 93 percent of the man's age. But for women, the researchers determined that the accurate formula should be 200 minus 67 percent of the woman's age, which is different than what was previously used. For example, if we do the math for a 40-year-old female, her peak heart rate would be 180 beats per minute using the old method, but the new equation puts her peak heart rate at approximately 173 beats per minute.
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While this new formula can help physicians diagnose heart-related diseases more accurately, it doesn't really make a difference when it comes to gauging how hard you're working out, says Lee Boyce, owner of Boyce Training Systems in Toronto. Your heart rate is still a good marker of a cardio workout's effectiveness, says Boyce, but instead of simply aiming for a specific target heart rate, pay more attention to your post-workout recovery time: The faster your heart returns to its normal resting state, the more fit you're becoming, he says.
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