Question for the experienced exercisers

I am almost 5 weeks post M for 3rd degree heartblock. I know my PM settings are 50-130.

I have been exercising daily and today pushed it a little bit on the recumbent bike.For the past week I have been working at about 65 %-70% of my target heart rate (100-115) for 1 hour and barely break out in a sweat.

Today I primarily worked out at 70%THR and then pushed it to 75% (125) for a few minutes. What I noticed was that my heart rate began to drop down to 100, so I pedaled harder to get it back up and it did not rise but kept falling. Believe it or not, other than the heart rate falling, I finally broke out in a sweat and it felt good. It felt like I was working out finally.

My question is, am I pushing to hard? Can I do any damage trying to push my heart rate up to the 130 upper limit of my PM? My next visit to the EP is in late April and I will discuss with him then and get him to raise it to at least 140 which is 85% THR for me.

Should I just continue to keep my workout at 70%THR until I get the upper limit raised or is it ok to push it to 75%?

3 Comments

limits

by Tracey_E - 2010-03-29 06:03:09

Um, yeah, you're probably pushing too hard. :o) I wouldn't go above 120-125 until you get your upper limit raised. It's ok to go right up to it, but it's not good to go over it. Since counts aren't always accurate, I like to leave a cushion between where I work out and my upper limit. Ask them to program it a little higher than you need.

Wondering why you dropped to 100. How are you tracking your hr, did you find an accurate monitor? It could be that you went over the upper limit and the pm put you into a block. Sudden drops are something to discuss with your ep. If it's the programming, they can fix it. If it's your heart, they should be able to program it so it doesn't happen with rate drop response.

Thanks Tracey!

by heartu - 2010-03-29 08:03:29

My recumbent bike has handles that measure your heart rate. I went up to 125 (not 130) according to the bike's monitor and then my HR started to drop. I am going to assume that my equipment's monitor may not be exact.

I will workout at the 120 max and try not to go above that at the moment. I thought that by going to 125 I still had a small cushion between that and 130 my upper range. It's just so frustrating because I told the doctor during my EP surgery that I workout regularly and get my heartrate up to 140 max. I guess he decided not to listen to me.

Do you think 140 as my upper limit should be sufficient or should I try to get him to bump me up to 150?

limits

by Tracey_E - 2010-03-29 11:03:36

They don't like to mess with the standard settings much until you've had it a few weeks. He probably kept it down because he wants you to heal and for the leads to get in place good, for your heart to get used to pacing. And they just plain don't get a lot of patients where it becomes an issue! They can leave it at 120 or 130 and 95% of their patients will never have a problem.

The handles aren't that accurate. If it said 100 and you felt fine, I'd be willing to bet it missed beats. Next time it says that, stop and count it yourself.

I'd ask for 150, maybe even 160, if you work out at 140. If he gives you a hard time, ask to get on a treadmill so he can see what you do when you workout. That's how I got mine to 175, on the treadmill he could see I get up in the 160's pretty easily and it stays nice and regular. If it wasn't regular, he wouldn't let me go that high.

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