Can your heart beat too fast?
Discussion
If your heart is disease free and healthy then you will get to a point at Mhr where the heart is not beating fast enough to supply oxygen to the working muscles and you will be forced,because you cannot inhale enough oxygen,to slow down.Very undramatic.
Edited by goldblum on Thursday 12th July 10:52
goldblum said:
If your heart is disease free and healthy then you will get to a point at Mhr where the heart is not beating fast enough to supply oxygen to the working muscles and you will be forced,because you cannot inhale enough oxygen,to slow down.Very undramatic.
So what will actually happen? Will you fall over?Edited by goldblum on Thursday 12th July 10:52
At a guess, because the heart is doing the job of supplying oxygen to the muscles and your body realises it needs to increase your heart rate to get the job done properly, if your heart can't cope with the demand, I suspect you'll get muscle fatigue and muscle ache ie your muscles don't receive the oxygen levels they require causing you to slow down. I guess it's like the body's own protection system so when it's running from a T-Rex, it doesn't keel over making itself an easy lunch.
goldblum said:
In extreme cases,however it's unlikely.You may have to sit down though.Most people just 'catch their breath' and resume their exercise at a slower pace.
Thats basically what I did last night, although the stop was through choice when I saw a number on a screen I did not like the look of. Max I had seen before was 166.Can max heart rate you can achieve therefore be taken as an indicator of fitness or lack of?
goldblum said:
No,although your Mhr can be increased by long term exercise by about 3-5%.
Is that basically saying then that if you are a bit fitter/exercise more that your max HR may go up?One thing that a cardiologist said to me when I was having an ECG done was that my heart seemed fit due to a resting heart rate of around 60. I wondered if it followed through that the max working rate was affected too.
Another thing that surprises me is how quickly I recover down to a more 'normal' rate.
When I'm unfit my max heart rate is about 212, when I'm fit I'll struggle to get past 198, not because my max is lower, but because the limiting factor has become my muscles, rather than the oxygen supply.
Anyway, I wouldn't worry about 186 particularly. It sounds unusual for you, but it's not particularly high.
I've had a heart palpitation twice, most recently I was going down a hill on my bike and my chest felt a bit funny. Half way up the next climb I noticed that my heart rate was 246 and responding to change in effort normally, so not electrical interference. I got off and had a lie down until the heart rate suddenly dropped to about 90, then carried on. First time it happened I'd been out the night before on Vodka Redbulls and then gone to Hockey training, this time I was just dehydrated. Neither time did I die, the second time must have lasted about 10 minutes and throughout quite a tough climb, so I reckon your heart will go a lot faster before it explodes.
Anyway, I wouldn't worry about 186 particularly. It sounds unusual for you, but it's not particularly high.
I've had a heart palpitation twice, most recently I was going down a hill on my bike and my chest felt a bit funny. Half way up the next climb I noticed that my heart rate was 246 and responding to change in effort normally, so not electrical interference. I got off and had a lie down until the heart rate suddenly dropped to about 90, then carried on. First time it happened I'd been out the night before on Vodka Redbulls and then gone to Hockey training, this time I was just dehydrated. Neither time did I die, the second time must have lasted about 10 minutes and throughout quite a tough climb, so I reckon your heart will go a lot faster before it explodes.
Quite a few incorrect statements here.
The person who stated that with fitness an INCREASE in MHR of 3-5% is very wrong.
In general as the cardiac muscles gain in strength through aerobic training the stroke volume increases over time, as will cardiac output.
Therefore MHR would lower by a similar margin.
The person who stated that with fitness an INCREASE in MHR of 3-5% is very wrong.
In general as the cardiac muscles gain in strength through aerobic training the stroke volume increases over time, as will cardiac output.
Therefore MHR would lower by a similar margin.
TROOPER88 said:
Quite a few incorrect statements here.
The person who stated that with fitness an INCREASE in MHR of 3-5% is very wrong.
In general as the cardiac muscles gain in strength through aerobic training the stroke volume increases over time, as will cardiac output.
Therefore MHR would lower by a similar margin.
Surely then even that is wrong.The person who stated that with fitness an INCREASE in MHR of 3-5% is very wrong.
In general as the cardiac muscles gain in strength through aerobic training the stroke volume increases over time, as will cardiac output.
Therefore MHR would lower by a similar margin.
More correctly should it not be that the required effort from the heart in a given situation would change.
Would the ability for the heart to develop a given max heart rate remain pretty much the same?
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