When you’re working out, several changes take place in your body, all of which benefit its health and improve the well-being of most of your organs. One of these effects is the increase in your heart rate, something which is most pronounced in the so-called “cardio” exercises, or the ones that concentrate their effects on your heart and blood vessels. While many know that the increased heart rate is a positive change, not that many are aware of how to accurately measure the precise rate at which they’re getting the most benefits of their exercise – also known as the Target Heart Rate, or THR for short.

One’s Target Heart Rate cannot be determined by using a simple formula, as it depends on many factors, including your gender, age, current physical conditions, as well as any prior training you’ve gone through. Generally though, you’d be going for a heart rate that is well over 100, but the precise number can also vary greatly.

For example, someone in their 30s who’s wishing to push themselves to a moderate level should look at a rate of about 115 beats per minute (or bpm). On the other hand, if that person was looking for a nearly maximum increase in intensity, they should go for something that’s quite above 150 bpm – so you can see the drastic difference that arises from setting different goals for yourself.

Numerous formulas can be used to approximate the number, but none of them can give you a 100% accurate result – so you should take everything with a pinch of salt. The Karvonen formula is one of the most commonly used for this purpose.

In all cases, you should go for something above 110 if you want your body to experience any benefits, especially weight loss. What happens at these increased heart rates, is that your heart starts pumping a lot more blood, delivering more oxygen to your organs. This reflects on your lungs, which need to produce more oxygen, and therefore you start running out of breath. The increased flow of oxygen to the organs is highly beneficial for them, as it helps them work faster and more efficiently.

This all reflects most noticeably on your metabolism, which enters a state where it burns fat a lot faster than usual, and leads to severely increased weight loss. Even though nobody can usually keep up at the pace required to keep this up for more than a few minutes, this is usually well enough to get a large effect on your health, burning lots of fat and bringing you closer to your weight goal.

Of course, knowing your Target Heart Rate is one thing, but being able to push your body there is completely different – and you should also know that going over your THR is not really recommended, as you’ll be wasting your body’s resources this way – remaining at your THR while working out is usually the most beneficial for your weight loss.