Why is it important to keep your heart rate up when you are working out?

[Anonymous]

[orphan]

heart rate is just a measure of how much work you're doing. if it's not beating faster than your resting heart rate, you're not burning more calories than you normally would by sitting in a chair.

burning off fat cells (if that's your goal) is better off w/ high intensity interval training, because calories are still being burned after you're done working out.

pure cardio is the most efficient way to do work. calories are only burned during. (i'm sure someone is gonna quip "um actually no that's not true".) shut up.

cardio is also desirable cuz it's easy, and can be done anywhere. w/ the trade off of being boring, hence all the TVs around the treadmill/cycle area.

[KaidenKass00]

Because you're basically exercising the organ. If you don't, it's not much of a workout. The more you push it, the lower your resting heart rate will be and the longer you can stay at max output. Your heart also actually enlarges when it gets stronger.

[phillykreta]

It depends what you are doing. Cardio for example can be real good when keeping your heart rate low to just have a streaky exercise... It's important to get it going once though to get better and faster oxygen transport to your muscles which you need to exercise...

[Cmasterson]

The heart becomes stronger when exercising, so it can pump more blood through the body with every beat and continue working at maximum level, if needed, with less strain. Heart rate has to match how much effort is being put in.

[genericname85]

because the heart rate indicates how much strain you put on your body. if it´s low, you´re not gaining anything, if it´s too low, you´re damaging yourself.

[genericname85]

*if it´s too high , you´re damaging yourself.