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How bad is overspeed and how do I regulate it?

Old 04-16-13, 07:58 PM
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bluefoxicy
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How bad is overspeed and how do I regulate it?

I redline right around 171bpm. it takes about 20% more output to push to 173-175 on the HRM; my max heart rate is about 190, so this makes sense (the math works both ways: Find where your heart refuses to beat faster and divide that by 0.9, and you'll probably see your MHR).

Apparently 90% of MHR is fine, but any higher and you're risking sudden cardiac arrest. The problem here is I don't have any real limiting behavior: I imagine most people notice they're hitting a wall, but I just don't. I notice I'm exerting a lot of effort, but it doesn't feel insurmountable. I keep going. I threw a 100lb bag up in the basement today and railed on it for 2 and a half minutes (glad I didn't use an S hook, I would have downed it in 20 seconds) and nearly puked... at 210bpm, about 10% over MHR. I was overheating, I drank something cold and that stopped the vomit reaction (eject hot core mass as a cooling strategy?). How I got there I'll never know.

Questions:

1. What are the long-term risks? Short term I already know; what kind of damage does this do though?

2. How do I stop this from happening? There isn't exactly a clear indicator that I'm actively blowing off all limits and doing whatever the hell I want here. I thought that was just supposed to not happen.

3. Holy crap how is punching something this hard?! I am not ready to bike to work this summer...

Maybe I'm hitting it too hard.
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Old 04-16-13, 08:34 PM
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If you don't have heart disease, and you apparently do not, you can't hurt yourself by exercising as hard as you like. Your MHR will be different for different sports. The more muscles that a sport engages simultaneously, the higher the MHR. So cycling is lower than running and running apparently lower than boxing. MHR is where your heart refused to beat harder. Most people feel like they are about to pass out. Probably not a good idea to pass out either running or cycling, lest one suffer the Attack of the Killer Pavement.

Most cardiologists will say that going hard does no damage. However there is a slim body of knowledge that suggests that going hard for long periods consistently for many years can have deleterious effects. I spoke to one cardiologist who opined that long periods of continuous high level exertion such as fartlek can have deleterious effects. All that said, I wouldn't worry about it if I were you. If you don't think you're in good enough shape to ride to work, you are certainly in no danger of overdoing it! I think these doctors are talking about a small subset of like professional triathletes or pro bike racers. I know two riders, one who was a 4:17 miler, and one who was a 2:20 marathoner, both of whom exercised very hard all their lives, who in their late sixties developed A-fib, though they both still ride and will probably live longer than you will.

Edit: BTW, .9 X MHR is usually about lactate threshold, or the highest HR maintainable for 20-40 minutes. But you have to know MHR to make that calculation. Or you can go the other way, use the sticky on this forum to find LT, then divide that by .9 to find approximate MHR.

Last edited by Carbonfiberboy; 04-16-13 at 08:38 PM.
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Old 04-16-13, 09:16 PM
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Originally Posted by Carbonfiberboy
MHR is where your heart refused to beat harder.
Actually, I believe MHR is the rate your heart beats when you can't work any harder. It's generally not your heart that is limiting your performance, rather, it's your muscles. I noticed when I started cycling my MHR from running was higher than cycling. Clearly when cycling my heart was capable of beating faster but my legs were limiting me. After a couple of years my cycling MHR is now about the same as my running MHR.

I'm not a boxer but I would expect since it uses upper body the MHR would be lower but perhaps there is a lot of leg involvement in punching a bag.

Provided your healthy there isn't any abnormal cardiac risk to exercising near or at your MHR.
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Old 04-16-13, 09:58 PM
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That's interesting. I'm going by stuff I've read online, which calculates maximum heart rate by age and mentions a whole lot of other stuff. I've seen it stated repeatedly that if you go above 90% you're in a range that puts you at severe risk for sudden cardiac arrest.

Lactic acid build-up? Most of what I've seen on limiting factor cites VO2[max] as the limiting factor, by which eventually you need more oxygen and your lungs physically can't exchange it fast enough.

I'm not a boxer, I'm just doing something to get moving. Boxing is labeled as 'cardio' and there are boxing routines specifically structured as aerobics. This didn't really occur to me when I started, despite having actually been in places where people practiced boxing for cardio. I am not paying attention.
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Old 04-16-13, 10:25 PM
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Here's a study that looked at outcomes of a large number of maximal exercise tests.

https://circ.ahajournals.org/content/80/4/846.full.pdf

A maximal exercise test is a test that has you walk on a treadmill with progressively increasing incline to the point of exhaustion. It is a good way to get you to your MHR and it is used to measure VO2max.

They reviewed 72,000 tests. These 72,000 resulted in 6 heart attacks and 1 death. Out of 6 subjects who suffered heart attacks, 5 had history of heart disease and 6th had rheumatoid athritis. 5 out of 6 were over 50. The one person who died was 63, had a heart attack several years prior, and had a history of high blood pressure. He had a heart attack 12 hours after the test.

They also say that, after they instituted a change in protocols, requiring all test subjects to cool down by walking for 3 minutes after completing the test, they had 45,000 tests with zero complications.

More recently, there has been a number of articles claiming that high-intensity interval training (which also takes you to your MHR) is not only safe even for people with preexisting heart disease, but it is advisable because it reduces the risk of heart problems and does it to a greater degree than prolonged medium-intensity training.

Last edited by hamster; 04-16-13 at 10:30 PM.
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Old 04-16-13, 10:53 PM
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Originally Posted by gregf83
Actually, I believe MHR is the rate your heart beats when you can't work any harder. It's generally not your heart that is limiting your performance, rather, it's your muscles. I noticed when I started cycling my MHR from running was higher than cycling. Clearly when cycling my heart was capable of beating faster but my legs were limiting me. After a couple of years my cycling MHR is now about the same as my running MHR.

I'm not a boxer but I would expect since it uses upper body the MHR would be lower but perhaps there is a lot of leg involvement in punching a bag.

Provided your healthy there isn't any abnormal cardiac risk to exercising near or at your MHR.
Must be individual. When I started cycling again at 50, I could achieve very high HRs with ease. As I got into shape, it got harder and harder to reach those high HRs. That's when I had a number of conversations with cardiologists, because I was able to get close to 190 pretty easily. Just going for a moderate ride, I was around 160. I notice quite a few beginners on this forum who complain of seeming to have abnormally high HRs. It may depend on one's recent aerobic exercise history. I hiked back then, but not much else, though I'd ridden, run, and was on a Nordic team when I was young. I think a smaller, less developed heart may just beat faster because stroke volume is less.
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Old 04-17-13, 02:45 AM
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How did you calculate your MHR in the first place? Maybe it's wrong, i've calculated mine and its around 190 but still i've gone as high as around 200. I can maintain 190 for some time, i doubt that its my MHR since i can maintain it for a couple of minutes :/
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Old 04-17-13, 05:33 AM
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Interesting. It looks like current research has superceded whatever I read before. Progress.
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Old 04-17-13, 08:22 AM
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Originally Posted by Carbonfiberboy
Must be individual. When I started cycling again at 50, I could achieve very high HRs with ease. As I got into shape, it got harder and harder to reach those high HRs. That's when I had a number of conversations with cardiologists, because I was able to get close to 190 pretty easily. Just going for a moderate ride, I was around 160. I notice quite a few beginners on this forum who complain of seeming to have abnormally high HRs. It may depend on one's recent aerobic exercise history. I hiked back then, but not much else, though I'd ridden, run, and was on a Nordic team when I was young. I think a smaller, less developed heart may just beat faster because stroke volume is less.
Undoubtedly. If your heart grows (stroke volume increases) faster than your legs gain power then your max HR will probably go down. My threshold HR probably went up about 5-7 beats over a 3 yr period. My max went from maybe 179 to 183, so not a big change. I might hit my max once a yr, if that.
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Old 04-17-13, 08:25 AM
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Apparently 90% of MHR is fine, but any higher and you're risking sudden cardiac arrest.
A healthy heart is self-limiting. When you approach MHR you are going to start to feel light headed and weaker, eventually you will have to back off. You're not going to be clocking along fine at 170 bpm and suddenly drop dead when you pass some magic number. The electrical conduction system in a healthy heart has a pacemaker (the SA node) and a conduction gateway (the AV node) that set your maximum heart rate that you cannot voluntarily exceed.

In an unhealthy heart (disease, genetic, etc) there is no specific point at which you can predict a problem. You can't say you are safe at 85% MHR but might die at 90%. Anyone with heart disease, known risks for heart problems, a close family history of heart problems, you get the point, should see his/her physician before attempting any strenuous exercise program.

There is a lot of argument over what heart rate zone is the best for health. There two main functions of the heart you can train, endurance and peak output, and all sports demand different balances between the two which is why you have to train differently for a time trial than you would for a cross-country tour. Even the definition of "health" is open to some interpretation. Are you looking for peak athletic performance or maximum longevity. There is growing evidence that large amounts of high intensity training may improve peak performance but actually cause long-term heart injury.

BTW, on the elliptical trainer I can maintain 170 bpm for 30+ minutes but once I pass 180 things start getting fuzzy and I have to back off after a few minutes. I guess this means my maximum heart rate isn't much over 180.

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Old 04-17-13, 08:28 AM
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Originally Posted by bluefoxicy
I redline right around 171bpm. it takes about 20% more output to push to 173-175 on the HRM; my max heart rate is about 190, so this makes sense (the math works both ways: Find where your heart refuses to beat faster and divide that by 0.9, and you'll probably see your MHR).

Apparently 90% of MHR is fine, but any higher and you're risking sudden cardiac arrest. The problem here is I don't have any real limiting behavior: I imagine most people notice they're hitting a wall, but I just don't. I notice I'm exerting a lot of effort, but it doesn't feel insurmountable. I keep going. I threw a 100lb bag up in the basement today and railed on it for 2 and a half minutes (glad I didn't use an S hook, I would have downed it in 20 seconds) and nearly puked... at 210bpm, about 10% over MHR. I was overheating, I drank something cold and that stopped the vomit reaction (eject hot core mass as a cooling strategy?). How I got there I'll never know.

Questions:

1. What are the long-term risks? Short term I already know; what kind of damage does this do though?

2. How do I stop this from happening? There isn't exactly a clear indicator that I'm actively blowing off all limits and doing whatever the hell I want here. I thought that was just supposed to not happen.

3. Holy crap how is punching something this hard?! I am not ready to bike to work this summer...

Maybe I'm hitting it too hard.
You can't go over your MHR. What you thought was your MHR wasn't your MHR.
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Old 04-17-13, 09:33 AM
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Originally Posted by Diddii
How did you calculate your MHR in the first place? Maybe it's wrong, i've calculated mine and its around 190 but still i've gone as high as around 200. I can maintain 190 for some time, i doubt that its my MHR since i can maintain it for a couple of minutes :/
Originally Posted by Wikipedia
There is no way to accurately calculate your mhr. There is a rule of thumb of 220 - age or something, but this completely ignores any factors except your age. From Wikipedia:
Maximum heart rates vary significantly between individuals.[SUP][11][/SUP] Even within a single elite sports team, such as Olympic rowers in their 20s, maximum heart rates have been reported as varying from 160 to 220.[SUP][11][/SUP] Such a variation would equate to a 60 or 90 year age gap in the linear equations above, and would seem to indicate the extreme variation about these average figures.



The only way to accurately know your mhr is to do a mhr test or stress test, which I think is supposed to be done under medical supervision.
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Old 04-17-13, 09:50 AM
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Originally Posted by Wilfred Laurier
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The only way to accurately know your mhr is to do a mhr test or stress test, which I think is supposed to be done under medical supervision.
The only way to know your MHR is to be going as hard as you can go on a climb, and be attacked by your best friend that you would prefer death over being dropped by, or to attack half a km from the line at 32mph, and try to avoid being caught before the line.

Competition will push you to levels you can't reach on a test.
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Old 04-17-13, 09:52 AM
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Originally Posted by bluefoxicy
Apparently 90% of MHR is fine, but any higher and you're risking sudden cardiac arrest.
If this were true, people would be dropping like flies at every weekend Masters Crit.


Assuming no underlying heart disease, and reasonable physical condition, its not an unreasonable risk to push yourself to the limit.

It's called doing intervals.
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Old 04-17-13, 11:51 AM
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Originally Posted by Myosmith
BTW, on the elliptical trainer I can maintain 170 bpm for 30+ minutes but once I pass 180 things start getting fuzzy and I have to back off after a few minutes. I guess this means my maximum heart rate isn't much over 180.
No, that just means that your lactate threshold is 170.

If you want to measure your MHR, do a warmup, go to 170, then progressively and gradually increase the resistance till you can't keep going. Make sure to cool down afterwards. If you ramp up at the right pace (not so fast that your heart can't keep up, and not so slow that you get exhausted before getting to the right level of resistance), you'll get to MHR.
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Old 04-19-13, 07:26 AM
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Originally Posted by hamster
No, that just means that your lactate threshold is 170.

If you want to measure your MHR, do a warmup, go to 170, then progressively and gradually increase the resistance till you can't keep going. Make sure to cool down afterwards. If you ramp up at the right pace (not so fast that your heart can't keep up, and not so slow that you get exhausted before getting to the right level of resistance), you'll get to MHR.
I see what you mean, but my post might not have been clear. I didn't mean that I would maintain 170 bpm for 30 minutes steady state then increase to 180. I mean that when I do Tabata style HIIT. I can't push my heart rate past 180-186 even on the first or second intervals for more than 30-60 seconds or so without feeling an impending crash/blackout. Perhaps a better term would be my functional maximum heart rate as I realize that on the elliptical trainer I'm not fighting for my life or in another adrenaline fueled state where my MHR would temporarily be higher.
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Old 04-19-13, 10:43 AM
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If I'm doing it right, I get a much higher HR on my last Tabata than on my first, i.e. maintaining the same appropriate power on all the intervals.
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