How to Use Heart Rate to Optimize Your Exercise Routine

Heartbeat monitoring could help achieve your more ambitious fitness goals

Mariana Lenharo
Elemental
Published in
6 min readMar 11, 2020

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A sweaty young woman takes a break while exercising outdoors.
Photo: Peopleimages/E+/Getty Images

WWith roughly one in five American adults regularly wearing a smartwatch or a fitness tracker, people are becoming more and more familiar with their own heart rates — a simple measure defined by the number of heartbeats per minute. When measured at

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Mariana Lenharo
Elemental

Science and health journalist with a special interest in evidence-based medicine and epidemics. Columbia Journalism School alumna. mari.lenharo@gmail.com.