Breath is a yardstick for intensity

Intensity of Exercise

The intensity rule is critical. Research shows that optimum exercise intensity for fitness improvement is in the range of 50% to 85% of maximum oxygen consumption. This corresponds to 60% to 90% of maximum heart rate. The higher the person’s fitness levels, the higher the appropriate exercise intensity. Heart rate during exercise can provide an excellent monitor of intensity. However, keep in mind that many factors can cause an increase in heart rate, and an elevated heart rate is not necessarily an indication of an effective aerobic training pace.

Breath is a yardstick for intensity

Now, if all this sounds too technical and confusing, I will give you a simple tool to measure the intensity of your training. All the above details can be useful for a health professional but too tedious for a beginner. Any individual can use the breath as the yard stick to measure the intensity of training. As long as one is breathing through the nose and as close as possible to natural breath, without feeling the need to open the mouth, one is training in the safe zone. If you feel the need to open the mouth to breathe, you are pushing the body beyond the comfort levels. When this happens, you must slow down. As the training progresses, new thresholds can be achieved.

Often people indulge in social talking while doing their activity. This lowers the intensity as well as awareness of the activity. Therefore, keeping your awareness on your breathing will be the beginning of training your mind to be in the present moment.