Understanding Heart Rate

Why Heart Rate Matters and the Role of % Max Heart Rate

What Is Heart Rate?
Heart rate is the number of times your heart beats per minute. It rises during physical activity to pump more oxygen-rich blood to your muscles. Monitoring heart rate is essential in understanding how hard your body is working, especially in hot conditions where physical and thermal stress combine.

Why HeatSense Monitors Heart Rate
In high-heat environments, your cardiovascular system plays a major role in cooling your body. As your core temperature rises, your heart works harder to circulate blood and regulate internal temperature. A sustained high heart rate, especially when paired with rising core body temperature, can indicate that an athlete is approaching dangerous heat strain.

What Is % of Max Heart Rate?
Rather than tracking raw beats per minute (BPM), HeatSense uses a personalized metric—percentage of your maximum heart rate. This makes the data more meaningful because it adjusts for differences in age, fitness level, and individual capacity.

% Max Heart Rate tells you how close you are to your personal peak. For example, working at 85% of your MHR means you're close to your physical limit.

Why Use % Max Instead of BPM?

• Personalization: What’s intense for one person may be moderate for another. % Max normalizes this.

• Safety Insights: Pairing % Max Heart Rate with core body temperature and skin temperature gives a clearer picture of heat strain.

• Training Control: Coaches and athletes can better understand performance intensity and when to scale back to avoid overexertion.

By using % Max Heart Rate, HeatSense provides smarter, more individualized insights into your heat and exertion risk, helping you train safer in all conditions.