Heart Rate micro-lesson

Have you ever noticed that when you run around, jump, play, you might get out of breath? But why do we get out of breath? That’s a sign that our heart rate has increased. Your heart rate is how quickly your heart beats each minute. Children between the ages of 8 and 15 should have a heart rate of between 60 and 100 beats per minute. But that’s just when you’re at rest, when you’re not moving. So, what happens when you exercise? When we exercise, our body needs more oxygen. This provides it with energy. So, we start to breath heavily because our body’s trying to bring in more oxygen. And our heart starts to beat faster because it’s sharing and spreading the oxygen to all of our muscles and tissues. When we exercise, we have a maximum heart rate. To find our maximum heart rate, we take 220 and we subtract our age. So, if you are 10 years old, 220 minus 10 is 210, your maximum heart rate. When we do monitored exercise, we should have a heart rate between 50% and 85% of our maximum. The harder the exercise you do, the higher your heart rate’s going to be. Just like when we’re resting, like I’m sitting now, my heart rate’s slower. I’m not breathing heavy, and my heart is beating slowly. So, when you get out of breath next time, think. Are you exercising? Is it moderate? Is it vigorous? And how high is your heart rate?