When I first started running, I always tried to aim to run at a fast pace, which constantly made me feel out of breath and exhausted. But then I learned to focus on a different metric that would make my runs feel so much easier: my heart rate.
Your heart rate is an indication of how much effort your body is exerting, says sports and orthopedic physical therapist Winnie Yu, DPT, CSCS. “The higher your heart rate is, the harder your body's working,” she says.
Heart rate zone training is when you adjust your effort according to different zones when you’re doing cardio, adds level 2 certified RRCA running coach Erica Coviello, CPT. Zone 1 is pretty low-intensity (think: slow walks or doing chores around the house), while Zone 5 is your all-out effort (like HIIT training or sprinting), Yu notes.
Monitoring your heart rate during workouts like runs and walks is important because it ensures you’re not giving 100 percent of your effort so your body can recover in between sessions, says Coviello.
