Minimum / Maximum Heart Rate

I've just done my evening commute. I always wear a heart monitor when I'm riding or running (Garmin 305 since you ask), because I'm training for a big thing in July and I'm logging everything I do in preparation for it.
Plus I'm a total geek who likes shiny stuff with buttons on.
Anyway,
Grays Inn Road was a bit busy just now, so I had to do a bit of ducking and weaving to get through. I looked down at the Garmin on my wrist and it was peaking at 130% of maximum heart rate. As a precaution I took it pretty easy on the rest of the way home, and I probably wont do my 90 minute run this evening. I feel totally ok though, and by the time I got home at snail pace it was back down to between 50 and 55%.
Should I be worried, or is the Garmin just playing silly buggers?

It's probably not reading your rate correctly, but it could also depend on your max calculation too.
I remember having a readout of 240 for about 10 minutes until I undid the strap and readjusted it.

You should worry, it clearly means you're going to die!

BPM went up to 229.

Maybe I drank too much Powerthirst.

It'll have been a dodgy reading, it's pretty common.

Trust me, you'd have known if your heart was doing 229 beats per minute.

You would have turned into a humming bird

I'm having tests done at the moment for a possible heart condition (or two, lucky me!) and mine regularly jumps up to 170, then beats very irregularly. I've learnt to deal with it, but trust me, if your heart is doing 220+ you will fucking know about it.

I was in the resus at hospital once and a guy walked in, cool as a cucumber, got hooked up to a monitor, claimed he felt "a bit lightheaded" but would be alright in a minute. The panic on the nurses faces when they looked at the BPM reading of 200 was pretty amazing. Turns out the dude was having a heart attack, but had walked to the hospital and said he'd felt like this a couple of times before! If ever there was a reason of when you should stop complaining and HTFU, this man was it.

It did feel a bit thumpy, but I wasn't thinking "maybe I'd better have a nice lie down.."

have you downloaded the data and had a look if it was a spike or if it was sustained?
how did you set the max HR?
and are you sure it is right?

the commonplace way of telling max heart rate is 220 - your age,
dunno how old you are but if you are able to get it to this comfortably, thats good, but unlikely that it can be maintained.
aerobic training zone is only a percentage of your maximum heart rate, theres loads of geekery in gyms about this, prolly charts and stuff on the net,
getting into watching it throughout the whole day is useful for finding out how you are, first thing in bed, etc etc.
Im into seeing how quickly it returns to normal after bursts of activity.

if the op was using a garmin can they post the data up here please?

Bit late now but the op should get down to a and e sharpish.

Better to be safe than sorry.

Too late now Ed, he's probably woken up dead, to quote David Duffield.

the commonplace way of telling max heart rate is 220 - your age,

that formula is generally discredited.
My max HR is 27 beats per minute higher than using the formula.
And I haven't died yet, in spite of the encouragment of many.

its a rough rule of thumb, but as you get to extremes it has less use (much like bmi)

Too late now Ed, he's probably woken up dead, to quote David Duffield.

I actually saw David Duffield the other day, wearing a very fetching blazer and straw hat.

Still alive, trying to work out how to post the graph from Ascent into this page.

Ok, here it is as a kml file.

Does that mean anything to anyone?

1 Attachment

• 28-May-10 17_35.kml

except it appears to completely fail...

Too late now Ed, he's probably woken up dead, to quote David Duffield.

Hmm, Isn't that a Megadeth song? Perhaps they were quoting him too....

The Duffield quote came when he was talking about EPO, he came out with some line about it turning riders blood to strawberry jam in their sleep and then they woke up dead.

I looked down at the Garmin on my wrist and it was peaking at 130% of maximum heart rate. As a precaution I took it pretty easy on the rest of the way home

lolz =)

its a rough rule of thumb, but as you get to extremes it has less use (much like bmi)

It's not a rule of thumb. It's a load of bollocks.

o.k, must have been misled by the numerous sources of this such as gyms, 220 mag,
however, if you can get heart to 220 and maintain for any length of time, and your not 12 years old,(or in bed dreaming) Im truly happy for you.
In years of doing heart rate testing, havent come across many adults at all who can,
but this is the internet of course.

I'm still alive, anyway. I gave myself a day off today, just in case, but my resting heart rate is 35bpm so I recon I'm prob ok. I did have quite a lot of coffee yesterday, which can trigger palpitations.
Looking at the graph. I was riding for 30 minutes normally before the event, and things went screwy when I was weaving in and out of very slow moving traffic. My average speed comes right down as I ease off the gas, but then I have to go up the hill from Kings Cross on York Road, so the HR doesn't drop. It is only when I turn left at the top of the hill and freewheel down Agar Grove that the HR falls back to everyday levels. In total, the abnormal part of the graph lasts about 8 minutes.