Your heart rate for fat burning is a crucial training zone. This is especially true if you are training for a marathon or simply want to lose some weight.
This is simply a heart rate range in which your body is tapping into stored fat for energy.
The exact heart beats per minute needed to reach this fat burning zone varies from one person to another, depending on a variety of factors.
If you have ever stepped onto a treadmill or elliptical trainer and entered your age, weight and height into the console, you were feeding the machine the information it needed to accurately calculate your target heart rate zone.
These are the standard factors that are used to determine the most effective fat burning heart rate for your body.
Someone of a different age, height and weight will of course have a very different required heart rate for fat burning.
The Standard Fat Burning Zone
The standard fat burning zone that has been recognized in the fitness industry for many years is 60-70% of your maximum heart rate.
Your maximum heart rate is the fastest speed that your heart is capable of functioning. This is measured by the number of heart beats that it can possibly sustain in a single minute.
Different people will have a different maximum heart rate and that is believed to be controlled largely by age. How fast the heart speeds up during exercise can also be a factor of body weight.
This is why an obese person will burn more fat than a healthier, thin person if they do the same exercise side-by-side. The obese person’s heart will pump faster, burning more calories, because it has more weight to haul around.
This explains why most obese people lose weight rapidly when they first start exercising and dieting, but the losses will eventually slow down as they get thinner. Their heart no longer has to pump as hard to sustain the smaller body during exercise.
It has commonly been believed that you will burn more stored fat if you workout within 60-70% of your maximum heart rate.
Depending on your age, weight, and potentially other factors, this may require you to push harder than someone else would have to push in order to reach this effective heart rate for fat burning.
What matters most is that you get your body where it needs to be. You can’t compare to what someone else is doing to get to their own fat burning heart rate.
Modern Controversy
The idea of sticking to this effective heart rate for fat burning has been accepted as proven science for many years, but in recent years there has been some controversy.
For starters, not everyone agrees with how the maximum heart rate for a given person is calculated. Exercise equipment is notorious for being inaccurate, even if the machine does ask your age and weight.
You know this if you have ever used a heart rate monitor while working out on one of these machines and compared numbers.
There is also some controversy over whether this standard heart rate for fat burning is better than working out at much higher intensities.
Many find that better weight loss results can be obtained by training at a heart rate range of 70-80% of the maximum heart rate.
Findings are that you burn more calories overall in this higher range, which results in greater weight loss benefits.
Yet, the fat burning heart rate zone of 60-70% remains the most effective way to train for endurance.
It is very useful to athletes and runners who want to train their bodies to sustain long distance running or long periods of fatigue out on a sports field.
What are You Training For?
When determining the best training heart rate zone for you, consider what your intentions are when working out.
If you need to lose some weight and are concerned with burning as many calories as possible, then you may want to pump it up to 80% of your maximum heart rate during some of your workouts.
If you are training for long distance running, then stick with the standard heart rate for fat burning zone, which is 60-70% of your maximum heart rate. This will keep your body tapping into stored fat for energy so you can sustain those longer runs without feeling fatigued.
Heart Rate Monitor Books
Are you really into heart rate monitor training and want to get in-depth advice on training with such a device? I would suggest to read Heart Rate Training
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