What is the best way to take your pulse? what important things about physical fitness can your resting, target and recovery heart rates tell you?

There are several ways to take your pulse:
- Good old fashioned way (see below)
- Using fitness tracking devices
Taking your pulse using a watch and finger:
- Place two fingers (not a thumb) on your right arm
- Place those two fingers on the thumb side of the arm (around the radial artery)
- Count the number of every beat you hear for 15 seconds (don’t skip one, each beat counts)
- Multiply the number by 4 to get the result
What those cool things mean:
Your heart rate during exercise can be somewhat of a direct variation to the input you exert. For example, the red zone is the highest attainable BPM during exercise
- Resting heart rate lets physicians know the health of your cardiovascular system (lower the resting, the better)
- Recovering heart rate is the period in which your heart returns to resting after exercise.

What are the options?