Keep testing your heart to get fitter

QI’VE read that the best way to know you’re exercising properly is to listen to your heart – as in, use a heart rate monitor to make sure you are getting your pulse up enough. At the moment, I’m going by the guidance that to find out your ideal maximum heart rate, it’s 220 minus your age. I’m 51, which means my goal is 169 beats per minute.

My resting heart rate is an athletic 50, and during my workouts I get it up to 180 for short, intense periods, quite comfortably. Am I training safely?

AESTIMATING maximum heart rate is just that – an estimation. The approach of 220 minus your age to give a theoretical maximum heart rate is, actually, not a bad one to use.

It is never going to be totally accurate, but it does at least give you a fairly good indication of what your maximum level may be.

A slightly varied version of this is to use your resting heart rate too if you want a more accurate working heart-rate indicator.

So, if you take 220, subtract your age, then subtract your resting heart rate (taken when you first wake up), then multiply by 0.85 (for an 85 per cent maximum working level), and finally ADD your resting heart rate back in again, you will find your working heart-rate level.

Again, it won’t be 100 per cent accurate but it gives you a great indicator.

If using the maths is too much of a faff, or you just want a broad indicator, you can easily use a simple ‘perceived exertion rate’.

This is just a scale of one to ten, in which you are unable to continue at ten, you can do ten to 20 seconds more work at nine, you can sustain at a high exertion at eight, and so on. At four to six, you are working only light to moderately.

These levels roughly correlate to your maximum heart rate, with seven equalling 70 per cent, for instance.

Short, intense bursts of activity, also known as high intensity interval training or HIIT, are enormously effective. While I would employ a sensible degree of caution and self-awareness in terms of how you are feeling and also your ability, by pushing ourselves hard, we achieve the most back in return. Overloading is a crucial part of exercise – we can’t grow if we don’t challenge ourselves.

Reduced blood pressure, controlled blood sugar, increased bone density, reduced cholesterol and lower weight and body fat are all highly proven benefits of working in this way.

Take some time to monitor your intensity and ask yourself whether you are working three to five times per week at a level that really challenges you. If you aren’t, it is very hard to keep making excuses for not making progress or to feel sorry for yourself. People who put in the effort achieve enormous, positive changes.

QI AM recovering from ankle-fusion surgery and have just been diagnosed with osteoporosis. My other foot will need extensive surgery in the coming year, a legacy of a car accident I was involved in many years ago. Therefore I have to be doubly careful. In the past I have attempted t’ai chi and Pilates. However, both regimes require a lot of flexing of the ankle, which is now impossible for me. I dislike gyms, but have been told I need to stay mobile and fit. What do you suggest?

AINJURIES set us back. They are demoralising, limiting and frustrating. Any leg damage, or injury, or range of motion limitation severely reduces our ability to really exert ourselves as much as we would like. However, the bone-thinning disease osteoporosis itself requires weight-bearing exercise to stress the bones in order to improve their density.

Running is one of the best ways you can create vibrations and bone stress, as are skipping, dancing or anything else that involves you leaving the ground and landing. Tennis is good, as the effect of hitting something causes the same types of micro-trauma in the upper body.

Weight-training using the weight of just your body will make the muscles work harder and the bones feel more stress. The heavier the load, the greater the stress level and the effect.

Cycling, particularly on hills, is also a terrific way to increase fitness and bone density in the lower body.

We need to adapt and use whatever we can to cope with injury and illness – and when you try a new thing, it is remarkable how much of a buzz it can give you and provide the motivation needed to push to higher levels.