exersicing and pvc

[doug16]

I am 42, work in construction, eat very little red meat, 2 beers a week max if any at all. no caffiene.  I swim in the mornings 1/2 mile, work and then go for a 3-5 mile run at about 8 min mile. when I am done I like to hit the weights for about 30 mins. usually i start benching because my heart rate is up and i am warm. I dont lift two heavy made 225x 3 set and then move on. After my first set I feel them. long intro sorry should I just wait to hit the wiegth or change my routine altogether.

[heather_dench]

Hi    i have been having pvc for the last 2 years and some days are better than others.
I also exercise most days , I run atleast 8 mile every second day and then weights after my running while im still warm! I do feel the Pvc every now and then when running butt when i start lifting weights thats when they kick in and give me grief . i have asked my trainer why this happens and he reacons that i was lifting to heavier weights, so i have lessoned the weights and i dont seem to have them much now!!!   Not sure if this helps, Butt hay , when you have PVC anything helps haha   Good luck :)

[doug16]

thanks I thought that was the problem i will certainly try, what caused yours to start?

[heather_dench]

Not sure what caused them to start, the doc said it could of been past infection butt i dont remember any infection that i had.
I came home from work one day and i sat down on the couch and my heart felt like it was about to jump out of my chest. scared the living daylights out of me!! Butt iv learnt to cope with them , at times i get a bit worried about them butt i think alot of it is due to stressing about them!! i try not to think about them and i dont seem to get them as freqent:)   Butt i do know that if i lift to heavier weights or any thing thats (over half my body weight) then they come fast and hard and dont let up for a few days.... :)

[Wisconsin2007]

The very first time I got PVCs was when I was lifting weights at home.  I don't remember anymore what lift or how much (though certainly not 225), but right about in the middle it happened.

I'm not a doctor, but it would seem that lifting weights is an activity a lot like playing hockey or football, where you're going like a bat out of hades for a short burst, then resting.  Go like crazy, short rest.  Not much you can do about that, because that's how lifting weights is done.  But I'm wondering if the nature of that exercise pushes adrenaline into your system to allow you to lift the heavy weights, and then when you're cooling down between sets, the heart slows down but the adrenaline is still pumping, and a few of your easily excitable heart cells fire off a little early.

It sounds like you have a really healthy lifestyle.  If you're worried about your PVCs, get yourself checked out by a doctor for peace of mind.  And for the lifting routine, maybe you could start with the least strenuous of your lifts and move up to the heavier ones later?  I know that means you'll lift less sets or reps, but maybe that'd help with the adrenaline rush you're probably getting when you sit down to start benching.  So maybe start with your triceps, biceps, that kind of thing, and then work your way up to benches and squats.

[doug16]

  Thanks I have changed up my routine and it seems to help. I have seen a doctor and he said it was nothing to worry about, however sometimes they are more frequent and I stress myself out. Mine started a couple of years ago during a very stressful period in my life.  I have been told that they will just go away sometimes have you heard of that? I appreciated all of the advice and knowledge that everyone has sent forth, thank you all.

[Wisconsin2007]

Absolutely they can come and go.  2006 was extremely stressful for me, and I had roughly 15-20,000 PVCs a day, every day, from about January until October.  Since then, I've had about 80 days where I've had that many.  

This is just my hypothesis, based on little facts, but I think that once there have been enough ingredients (adrenaline, catecholamines, caffeine, etc) to cause an arrhythmia like a PVC, it creates something not unlike a brain synapse, a pathway that is more easily accessed after it's been formed, making your second PVC much more likely than your first, and your 6 millionth more likely than your five millionth (I've had 'em both).  

Because they are relatively new to you, they are understandably going to stress you out more than they do people that have had them for years, if for no other reason than after you've had them for ten or twenty years, you know that if they were going to kill you they probably would have done it already.  Deep down you don't know that yet.  You'll read and learn all the things you can do to minimize their appearance and it'll work most of the time, but every once in awhile they'll come back, no matter what you do.  And then in three years you'll realize you've lived through quite a few of them and nothing bad has happened.  Three years after that you'll chuckle at how worried you were when you had your first bout with PVCs.  A few years after that you'll only ever take notice when you have many thousands a few days in a row.