Monitor Your Effort

Start slowly (introductory programs are ideal) and progress gradually towards your goals. Doing too much, too soon, too hard or too often are the four "toos" which can lead to injury burnout and dropout. Give you body time to adapt to the exercise you are doing, and progress to the next level of difficulty only when the exercise you are doing feels too easy. Choose the less intense options offered by your leader and ask for modifications when you are having difficulty with an exercise.

How hard should you be working? If at any time during exercise you have difficulty breathing; have pain in your chest, arms or legs; feel faint, dizzy or lightheaded, you are getting strong signals from your body to slow down. Take responsibility to monitor your effort by using the following monitors of exertion.

Rate of Perceived Exertion (RPE) 

Tune in to the sensations from your body that tell you how hard you feel you are working (your breathing, the feeling from your muscles, etc.). Select a number from the chart below which describes how hard you are working. Warm up should find you expressing numbers from 7-12. The workout portion of class (cardiovascular and muscle conditioning phases), will require effort around 12-17. Cool down will find you back at levels of 6-10. RPE is a useful, reliable way to monitor your effort. Unlike heart rate, you don't have to stop activity and find a pulse.

 

Intensity	How you feel
6-7	Very, very light
8-9	Very light
10-11	Fairly light
12-13	Somewhat hard
14-15	Hard
16-17	Very hard
18-20	Very, very hard

Talk Test

Are you able to speak while you exercise?

Your breathing will be more rapid as you work, but you should be able to answer a simple question like: "How are you doing?" The talk test is one of the most reliable indicators of how hard you are working. If you are able to carry on a normal conversation, you are not working hard enough to get a training effect from your activity. If you are breathless and unable to speak, you are working too hard and should moderate your activity.

 

Intensity	How you feel
10-8 Vigorous	Winded or too out of breath – may need to slow down
7-5 Moderate	Can carry on a conversation comfortably while exercising
4-1 Minimal	Able to sing while exercising.. May want to increase intensity

Target Heart Rate (THR)

There are various formulas for establishing appropriate exercise heart rate. The following chart was calculated using 220 beats per minute (bpm) minus your age as your maximum heart rate. Working at 60%-90% of your maximum heart rate is sufficient "overload" of your cardiovascular system to generate a training effect. This means your system will get stronger in responses to the overload.  This heart rate is further adjusted for aquafitness exercise because the water lowers heart rate by facilitating effective circulation and cooling of the body. Hear rate is difficult to measure accurately in the water. Your instructor may prefer that you use the Talk Test and Perceived Exertion to monitor exercise intensity.

THR formula: 

• (220-age)X60% = lower limit of training zone - subtract 10 bpm for aquafitness
• (220) bpm-age) X 90% = upper limit of training zone - subtract 10 bpm for aquafitness

 

Age	Training HR Range for Aquafitness		Beats/10 seconds
	Lower Limit	Upper Limit
20	110 bpm	170 bpm	18-28
30	104 bpm	161 bpm	17-27
40	98 bpm	152 bpm	16-25
50	92 bpm	143 bpm	15-24
60	86 bpm	134 bpm	14-22
70	80 bpm	125 bpm	13-21
80	74 bpm	116 bpm	12-19