As you know, staying fit and in good physical shape greatly contributes to your heart’s health.

Exercise can help you avoid developing different hearth and blood vessel diseases or other problems. Cardio fitness is a type of workout, which can help you to train your heart and entire body to improve your overall physical health while helping you burn extra fat.

Hold on a sec… before you start any cardio workouts you should learn several things that can help you to attain the best results and to avoid causing possible permanent damage to your health.

First of all, before giving yourself any physical load of work, consult your doctor and make sure you know how much physical strain you can reasonably withstand, and which types of exercises you can do.

Next, when doing your cardio fitness, you should learn to calculate your Maximum Heart Rate. This characteristic number indicates the maximum number of heart beats your heart is capable of producing in one minute.

The calculation is very simple to do: subtract your age from 220. For example, let us say your age is 32: 220 – 32 = 188. 188 is your maximum Heart Rate or you are capable of producing 188 heart beats per minute.

It is important to know your maximum heart rate to determine your cardio training intensity and your Target Heart Rate. As a rule, Target Heart Rate is set to 60-80 percent of your maximum heart rate. For low intensity cardio fitness, keep your heart rate limited to around 60% of your maximum. Bring it up to 80 percent of your maximum for high intensity exercises.

Finally, we want you to learn how to take your heart rate. Of course, the easiest way to do it is to get you an electronic heart rate monitor or a cardio machine with touch sensitive pad.

Though, if you do not have any of such devices you may learn to take your heart rate “manually”. There are two spots on your body where you can take your heart rate. Those are on the inside of your wrist and on the carotid artery on your neck.

To take your heart rate you need to place your finger on your wrist or on the left of your neck just below the jaw. You may count your heart beat during 10 seconds or during 1 minute. If you count your heart beat for 10 seconds you need to multiply the results 6 and you will get your heart rate per minute.

Doing some simple cardio exercises such as walking of jogging and determining properly your target heart rate will allow you to exercise with the proper intensity. You can help you body to stay fit and in good health for many years of your life.