Insider: Why paying attention to your heart rate could have a big impact on your workouts

Cardio can feel almost torturous, especially when you’ve committed time and energy to sprinting on the treadmill four or five times every week without any visible progress to speak of.

But pushing yourself to the limit is tricky. If you under-perform, you’re definitely not going to see the results you’re looking for. If you overexert yourself, you put your body at risk for injury. So how can you identify the happy medium for your personal endurance level?

Before you begin, you have to identify your RHR, or resting heart rate

Resting heart rate, Dr. Robert Segal, co-founder of LabFinder.com told INSIDER, is the number of beats per minute (bpm) your heart pumps when it’s at rest (i.e. when you first wake up in the morning, or right before engaging in any physical activity). The normal baseline for adults falls anywhere between 60 to 100 bpm, while the average athletes’ baseline can is between 40 to 60 bpm.

Once you’ve identified your RHR, you can work with a trainer or doctor to figure out which heart rate zone is going to be ideal for your fitness goals.

Read the full article on Insider.