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Cardio Training Tip (the “no load” to “full load” scenario)
By Dr. Mark Lucas, D.C. AKA “TheMotoDoc”
TheMotoDoc.com
A few weeks ago a District 36 racer in his mid 40’s lost his life at a local event. The cause was a heart attack. Some of you may remember last spring a marathon racer fell due to a heart attack at the Bay to Breakers Marathon. This phenomenon happens more often than you would think. First off, people find it suspect that a person such as an experienced runner would have a heart attack while running. The first thought is that this person should be in great shape, why is he of all people having a heart attack?
There has been quite a bit of research on this topic over the past few decades and the common results of this research is that overall - conditioned runners should have a lower incidence of cardiac related illness. It is suggested that athletes who suffer a heart attack during athletic performance usually have some type of disease process going on and the additional stress prematurely brings on a heart attack. While this may be the general consensus between researchers, through my practice I have noticed another phenomenon that I believe to be an additional risk that typically goes unnoticed.
Over the past several years I have compiled heart rate data from athletes that I train. One of the things I have noticed is that properly warming up your heart is critical to how you are going to feel throughout the day. When most people warm up they think about warming up their legs or their arms, but I have come to believe that we need to focus on warming up our heart.
The key thing that I have noticed is something very subtle. When our heart is cold and we start to exercise our heart goes through some initial stress. If we go out to hard and to fast our heart goes into an irregular beat known as fibrillation. This means that the heart beats abnormally fast and shallow. I have seen this happen anywhere from 5 seconds to 5 minutes. I have also seen it happen multiple times before the heart is sufficiently warmed up at which point it usually doesn’t happen again.
The interesting thing is that we don’t know this is happening. We don’t “feel it”. What is even more interesting is that for a while I thought this phenomenon happened mostly to people over 30 years of age. But then I ran an experiment with some neighborhood kids under 15 and found out that it happens to them quite frequently. As with older people it typically only happens early on in an exercise episode. I rarely have ever seen it at the end of an exercise episode. This leads me to believe that this is a natural occurrence, a way for the heart to adapt from a “no load” to a “full load” situation. But a 15 year olds heart has a much better capacity to recover that a 40 year olds heart does.
Let me put some numbers to this (these are in beats per minute).
The typical racing heart rate in cross country is between 145 and 170(the pros can sustain 185 intermittently through a race). The typical heart rate in motocross is between 155 and 185(the pros can bounce off of 195-200 intermittently).
The average scenario is that we will hit the highest heart rates during the first 1 to 5 minutes of racing. This is a “no load” to “full load” scenario. The average resting heart rate is around 65-70. So your heart is going from 70 to 170( maybe even 180) in a relatively short period of time. If you don’t warm up properly your heart may go into fibrillation which can be anywhere from 225 to 265. At this point your heart is beating abnormally fast and shallow, this is a stressed state. Your heart is not designed to run like this for long periods of time. But you don’t know that it is happening so you are still charging and giving maximum exertion. Eventually your heart will snap out of this and drop back down to 170, but the longer this happens the weaker you are going to be through out the race.
I want you to understand that what I am saying is totally from my own observations. When this happens I believe it places additional stress on the heart and weakens it. I have found that the longer a heart stays in fibrillation the less energy, strength and endurance a person will have as the day goes on. The additional stress makes it harder for the heart to recover and in motorcycle racing recovery is integral to putting in good results.
What I have found is that if you exercise daily and warm up properly the incidence of going into fibrillation becomes less to nil. Both of these things are key. Exercise everyday and warm up properly. I believe the least amount of cardio you should do is 30 minutes and hit 140 bpm at least once a day. Ideally you should not break 120 bpm for the first 15 minutes, then from there be at 140 at the end of 30 minutes. Taking it one step better you should sustain 140 for at least another 15 minutes. This should be your initial heart work out. After that you can go into more rigorous routines, but I believe this to be a safe baseline for the average person.
The majority of people do not spend enough time warming up their heart. I feel it takes anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes to properly warm up your heart. Some people it might take longer. Everyone is different. If you warm up properly the chance of your heart going into fibrillation is a lot less. Motorcycling is a “no load” to “full load” kind of sport. If you warm up properly your heart will handle the “no load” to “full load” scenario much better.
Rule #1: Own and wear a heart rate monitor all the time. Don’t rely on the monitor that comes with the tread mill. What is a better source of measuring your heart rate, your heart or your hand? Think about it.
Rule #2: Get to know how your heart handles stress. Wear it when you ride, wear it when you pull weeds, wear it when you argue with your wife. You’ll be surprised.
Rule #3: Learn your hearts warm up pattern. It just may save your life.
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