Q: While walking on the treadmill, my pulse rate first goes up and after a few minutes of walking, the machine shows a lower pulse rate. The coming down of pulse rate is after a good amount of sweating. At the end of the exercise, I don't feel anything abnormal, just tiredness due to exercise. Is this normal?

A:You could use the Talk-Test to know whether you are reaching your target heart rate which you need so that your aerobic capacity increases thereby making your heart fitter. If while on the walk, you can talk too easily, you need to go a little faster. If you cant then you would have to slow down just a bit. Do remember to warm up and cool down after every time you exercise. Include some stretching of the muscles that were involved to help in your cool down. As you advance in your exercises over time, you will find you need to challenge yourself more or do different activities to keep the body from getting too used to the same routine.