23% Grade - Heart Rate Approaching DEATH - Help???

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

"Approaching death"???
Call me nuts, but if my heart was pounding that fast and I felt like throwing up.... I would STOP doing what I was doing immediately!

Exercise is good, but is it actually good for you to overstress your heart so much? What if it just quits, what will you do then? (you won't be doing much I'll wager) Is it GOOD for your heart to do this?- I'd really be interested in knowing that- any experts out there?...

[KSH]

"Approaching death"???
Call me nuts, but if my heart was pounding that fast and I felt like throwing up.... I would STOP doing what I was doing immediately!

Exercise is good, but is it actually good for you to overstress your heart so much? What if it just quits, what will you do then? (you won't be doing much I'll wager) Is it GOOD for your heart to do this?- I'd really be interested in knowing that- any experts out there?...

Ah now... feeling like throwing up after a good hard run or ride... is invigorating (?spelling?)!

I always love that feeling after I really push it on a run.

[7rider]

Are you sure that's an accurate reading???
My Garmin is prone to giving me false readings - I've had HR's in the 220 range - I KNOW that's not right. I have a max speed somewhere in my database of 375 mph.
Not sure how you felt vs. other more "normal" high HR readings, but from my experience with Garmin HRM's - including second hand reports from others who term it "junk' - I'd take the outlyer reading with a grain of salt....
Look at the points around it....

[Mr. Bloom]

I have a max speed somewhere in my database of 375 mph.

Wow! You're really good

I really think it was right...I had never felt like that before...

[Di bear]

I'm not quite sure how the Garmin works, but I know some HR monitors will figure a heart rate based on the time lapse between two beats. So, your heart beats only twice, and it gets a rate. If you have an arrhythmia, I suppose the Garmin could pick this up and record it (computers don't account for irregular heart rates). I would suggest stopping and manually taking your heart rate.

Maybe you should get set up for an EKG to get a baseline reading.

Also, I honestly feel that your heart rate should not go above 190 or so. There are limits.

[Torrilin]

Basically, you went *splat* on the hill. The idea is to stop just before you hit the nausea point. Then try the same hill on another ride. And another. Keep doing it, and eventually your circulatory system will develop the strength to handle such a steep hill. Your body *will* get the message from just trying once or twice a week.

Pushing to the nausea point means there's good odds of you not thinking straight. Even if it's fine for your body in the abstract, it's a silly thing to do on a road. Bad judgment leads to accidents, whether it comes from alcohol or oxygen deprivation.

[Thorn]

Thanks keeper for the explanation....(and, of course, Mr. Silver for starting the thread). I hit a new high BPM this weekend (the hill only peaked at 19% but in a series of rollers where the longest was 1/2 mile long). I hit the nausea point, but it doesn't sound as bad as Mr. Silver; DH took the route of valor and engaged "La Nona" and got off and walked. Darn...now I found out he probably did the right thing.

[lph]

jumping in late into the max HR discussion: I borrowed a HRM for a couple of weeks, and overshot my formula-calculated "max" immediately. I was then told that the formula was just to give a rough number to work with, because actually measuring your max HR is so uncomfortable - biking up a hill til you almost puke was mentioned - that a lot of people can't be bothered to do so.

Sounds like Mr. Silver just did

[Andrea]

Also, I honestly feel that your heart rate should not go above 190 or so. There are limits.

Maybe for you, but my average HR for a 4 mile time trial is 191. My max is 205, and I'm 26 years old.

220-age is just a prediction. Like someone said earlier, it's not going to kill you to be at your max, but it's not optimal because of the slight reduction in cardiac output. You can't physically sustain a max heart rate for long enough to feel serious ill effects from a reduced cardiac output, so, barring a pre-existing cardiac abnormality, there really is no danger in allowing your heart rate to get that high.

As your fitness improves, it's common to see a slight decrease in max heart rate. This goes back to the cardiac output thing- the better shape you're in, the more blood your heart can pump out with each beat, so it doesn't have to beat as many times per minute to move the same amount of blood per minute that it did before you started training. That's why your resting and submaximal heartrates decrease significantly when you go from being sedentary to well-trained. Max HR won't always decrease, and if it does, the decrease is not as dramatic as the changes seen in resting & submaxiaml heart rates.

[Di bear]

Maybe for you, but my average HR for a 4 mile time trial is 191. My max is 205, and I'm 26 years old.

Andrea, I'm not going by a chart. I'm going by what I "honestly feel" and the 190 is a ballpark figure. So, I think your 191 is perfect. If the goal is to increase stroke volume, which is what it really should be, then consistently getting your HR super high is not necessarily the way to do it.

I don't use a heart rate monitor because I personally feel that HR training is bunk, but that's just my personal opinion. I often climb at my "max" of 190 (I'll manually check my heart rate once in a while, especially if it feels really high and hard). I know I could go above it, but I don't feel it is necessary, and it could even become problematic. I stop and drink when my HR gets "too high." The heart is not the only muscle you're training. If your HR is getting that high, then it's your other muscles that are begging for mercy, not the heart. Slow down. Do an an endurance workout. Don't punish your heart because other muscles are undertrained. Your legs don't have to hurt to be working anaerobically.

For me, I prefer to keep my HR in the 160-180 zone. That is just where I am when I ride. If I go above that, then that is an indicator that I need to reassess my training and come at it from a different angle. Usually, that angle is endurance training. (Long, long, slow, hill climbs.) As stated before, I don't always measure, but I go by how I feel.

The reason why I thought of an arrhythmia is because I've seen a lot of them on peripheral vascular and carotid ultrasounds. They're not uncommon. You'd have a few normal beats, then a quick beat, then a few seconds of no beat. Something like that might throw the Garmin off. That's why an EKG may be a good idea. Get a baseline to know where you're at. It could be something as serious as a septal defect, or it could be nothing at all. Another issue is that it might not be your "true" max (I'm talking about the 212 and 225 HRs thrown out there), but tachycardia for whatever reason.

I've spent a lot of time with sick people, so I'm just cautious.

[DarcyInOregon]

I think the Garmin's or any other heart rate machine's false readings are when there is interference, and the cyclist is not going up a killer of a grade. My hunch is the heart rate of 220 was probably accurate, given the circumstances.

Mr. Silver, good for you for getting as far as you did. I am envious. Honest to goodness, I wish I could read a post like this and say, "Huh, I go up 10 miles of 28% grades every day and my heart rate doesn't go past 150." In my dreams, only.

Like Lisa said, stop. Whenever you feel something going wrong, stop.

But gosh, that is brave, to even try a grade that steep. Kudos.

Darcy