If your max heart rate is your heart rate when you’re pushing yourself to your limits, your resting heart rate is the opposite.

Researchers are following a cohort of pregnant women by using the new tools to measure potential biomarkers and looking for ones that predict poor outcomes. The teams are based at Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, Virgina and at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas. They have collected data on more than 620 pregnancies and are using these data to establish baseline measures and to compare healthy and complicated pregnancies.

“Some people find it motivating to know their heart rate zone. If it helps you keep on track with your exercise program, that’s OK. For everyone else, the talk test works just fine,” Travers notes. “Can you talk and carry on a conversation when you’re exercising? Then you’re in a moderately easy zone. Not everyone should stress about the numbers, especially if that becomes a barrier to enjoying exercise.”

If tracking your heart rate makes you happy and motivates you, go for it. But if heart rate calculations become a stumbling block, forget about them and focus instead on how your body feels when you’re exercising.

If you thrive on numbers and a quantitative understanding of your exercise program, it’s time to get nitty-gritty. It takes a bit of math to find your target heart rate zones, so get your calculator handy.

We talked with Travers about heart rate zones — where your heart rate should fall for the most health benefits — how to calculate your zones and if they’re really all that important.

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Talk with a credible healthcare provider, like an exercise physiologist or physical therapist, for personalized advice about heart rate zones and their impact on your exercise program.

Like the Pirate’s Code, heart rate zones are less like “rules” and more like “guidelines.” Your personal physiology isn’t entirely ruled by the laws of mathematics. There’s some give and take here.

The goal of this work is to combine data generated by new ultrasound tools with standard placenta ultrasound measures and potentially other biomarkers to create a predictive score called the placenta index. Researchers hope to use the placenta index to identify high-risk pregnancies early on and provide treatment aimed at improving health outcomes.

Research shows that signs of placental dysfunction may be present early in a pregnancy. New noninvasive ultrasound technology might make early diagnosis of placental dysfunction a reality. A team of scientists supported by NICHD through the Human Placenta Project (HPP) is testing newly developed ultrasound technology that may allow them to distinguish at the beginning of a pregnancy between patients who are likely to have healthy outcomes and those at risk for complications.

The novel ultrasound imaging tools measure both structure and function of the placenta, which researchers are working to correlate with pregnancy outcomes. The team, which is led by Alfred Abuhamad, M.D., and George Saade, M.D., is collaborating with ultrasound maker Canon Medical Systems to test the company’s new technology.

For the average exerciser, you can turn to your body’s cues to understand whether you’re getting a workout. If you’re carrying on a normal conversation without effort, your heart rate isn’t all that elevated. If you’re struggling to keep up with talking, you know your heart rate is spiking.

You’ll find your target heart rate for each heart rate zone by multiplying your heart rate reserve by the percentage of max heart rate that each zone represents:

You can also find your resting heart rate by feeling your pulse on your wrist and counting the number of beats in a minute. Travers suggests doing this first thing in the morning for the most accurate results.

For optimal cardiovascular health, the American Heart Association recommends at least 150 minutes per week of moderate-intensity aerobic activity (zones 1 to 3). Or if you want to get more benefit in less time, aim for 75 minutes per week of vigorous aerobic activity (zones 3 to 4). Or split the difference and do a combination of the two.

“For weight loss and endurance-building, it’s best to exercise in the zones that rely on fat for fuel — zones 1 through 3,” Travers emphasizes.

Heart rate zones are based on a percentage of your maximum heart rate. The easiest way to calculate your max heart rate is using the age-adjusted formula 220 – your age = max heart rate.

Heart rate zones are essentially an indication of how hard your heart is working to pump your blood and keep up with the demands of what you’re doing. The higher your heart rate, the higher the heart rate zone you’re in and the harder your body is working to keep up.

“If you’re moving your heart rate higher than what it is at rest, you’re helping improve your cardiovascular health,” Travers says. “You're improving your cardiovascular health when you raise your heart rate from what it is at rest and what it is during your normal daily activity. That’s the key.”

“Your heart rate zone tells you how hard you’re working, and what you’re utilizing for energy,” explains exercise physiologist Chris Travers, MS. “The higher your heart rate gets, the more you're burning carbohydrates and protein for energy, and the less you’re using fat for energy.”

So, you may see heart rate zones described in slightly different ways and using different names. That’s OK. There are a lot of gray areas. The bottom line is that as your heart rate climbs, your body reacts to keep up with your needs.

“Having more muscle mass boosts your metabolic rate (the number of calories you burn at rest),” Travers adds. “That means that with more muscle, you’ll burn more calories throughout the day, which will help promote weight loss.”

The most accurate way to know your max heart rate is by doing an exercise stress test or VO2 max test. During the test, you’ll be hooked up to a heart rate monitor while you run as fast as you possibly can on a treadmill or pedal on an exercise bike. The heart rate you achieve at your “breaking point” is your maximum heart rate.

Raising your heart rate above your resting point, even a little, strengthens your heart. And it helps to improve blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar and more.

It’s easy to assume that pushing yourself to your max is the most effective way to lose weight, right? More sweating, more huffing, more puffing, more weight shedding, right?

Of course, not all 40-year-olds — or 20-year-olds or 60-year-olds — are at the same level of physical fitness. So, your actual max heart may vary some from this calculation. But if you don’t have a more precise max heart rate from an exercise stress test or VO2 max test, it’s a good starting point to understanding what you should consider your threshold for safe exercise.

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Their heart rate reserve would be 180 (max heart rate) minus 70 (resting heart rate), which equals 110. Keep this number handy for the next step.

Your resting heart rate represents how many times your heart beats in a minute when you’re sitting or lying still. For most people, that’s somewhere in the range of 60 to 100 beats per minute. Finely tuned athletes will typically have a lower resting heart rate than people who aren’t as physically fit.

The Karvonen formula to calculate your training zone is this:([Maximum heart rate – resting heart rate] x % intensity) + resting heart rate = training zone.To simplify some, here’s another way to look at it:

For most people, what matters most for your heart health is that you make an effort to move more. Any exercise, for any length of time, will improve your cardiovascular health.

But lately, exercise experts have turned to the Karvonen formula, which takes into account your resting heart rate, too. That creates a more personalized understanding of your exercise intensity. More to come on that.

“When your heart rate increases, you’re not taking in as much oxygen. You can’t oxidize fat fast enough when you have less oxygen. So your body turns to another, more readily available energy source to provide fuel for you — glycogen, also known as carbohydrates. You can do short bursts in higher, more intense heart rate zones to push your body. Overall, though, it’s best to spend longer periods closer to 50% to 70% of your max heart rate for the most efficient results.”

For committed athletes, your heart rate zone can tell you a lot about the intensity of your workout and the health benefits to your body. But it takes a bit of math and some understanding of your heart rate to appreciate what those numbers mean for your health.

You’re committed to your exercise program. You’ve got your cushy sneakers on your feet and a fancy new heart rate monitor on your wrist. But when that tracker displays your heart rate, do you actually know what to do with that information?

Many wearable heart rate monitors can tell you your resting heart rate at any given moment. Or they may show you your resting heart rate based on an average over several days.