Contents:
- Medical Video: How to check your pulse and heart rate
- What is heart and lung fitness?
- How do you measure heart and lung fitness?
- An easy way to measure heart and lung fitness with aerobic exercise
Medical Video: How to check your pulse and heart rate
So that you can move smoothly and your body stay healthy, your two vital organs, the heart and lungs, must work well. Well, it turns out there is an easy way to find out if your heart and lungs are fit and healthy enough so that their function is maintained. You don't need to go to the hospital, you can even do it yourself, how come.
What is heart and lung fitness?
A person's body fitness can be measured by various things. For example from the level of muscle fitness, heart fitness, and lung fitness. The fitness of these body parts can be improved and trained with physical activity and exercise.
By exercising fitness, the strength and endurance of the heart and lungs when you move will increase. You can also move smoothly and not easily tired.
How do you measure heart and lung fitness?
If you want to measure the function of the heart and lungs in performing their performance, you can do a series of tests in the hospital, for example the Pulmonary Function Test (PFT) for the lungs and Echocardiography (EKG) for the heart. However, the procedure is of course very complicated to the point of high costs.
Well, you can find out the level of your heart and lungs in an easier way, just by doing aerobic exercise. You also don't have to bother going to the hospital to take a series of tests.
Aerobic exercise is a sport whose movements are regular for a certain duration and carried out repeatedly. Examples are swimming, cycling, jogging, and aerobics.
Because of its repetitive and continuous movements, it requires stable energy and good oxygen intake. So, aerobic exercise is good for the health of your heart and lungs.
Through your heart rate after aerobic exercise, you can also measure whether your heart and lungs are fit and healthy.
An easy way to measure heart and lung fitness with aerobic exercise
First, prepare the tools needed, namely stopwatch and sports equipment.Then, count your heart rate at rest and when on the move.
There are two steps you need to do to measure your heart rate. Check out the steps below.
- Measuring arteries in the neck and arteries in the wrist. While looking stopwatch, count how many heartbeats in the duration of 10 seconds. Then, multiply by 6 to get the heart rate in one minute. For example, in ten seconds you have 17 heartbeats, multiply 6. That means in a minute you have 102 heartbeats.
- Exercise for at least 10 minutes. After that, count more of your heart rate in a minute. You can use the same formula that is used when you measure a resting heart rate.
Well, pay attention to the size of a normal heartbeat in one minute for the following healthy adults.
25 years old : 98-146
35 years old : 98-138
45 years old : 88-131
55 years old : 83 – 123
65 years old : 78 – 116
If you rarely exercise, you can immediately see a change in your heart rate just by walking for 10 minutes. However, for those of you who have been exercising regularly, you may have to exercise for a while, the heart rate will change faster.
Why so? This indicates that your heart and lungs have successfully adapted to physical activity, so that they can be more efficient in carrying out metabolism.
The more stable your heart rate while exercising, the better your heart and lung fitness will be. A stable heartbeat is also characterized by breathing that is good when on the move or exercising.
Whereas if your heart rate tends to be irregular and hunting, you may be gasping for breath and out of breath when you are actively moving.
