Hi, I am sorry about ur heart problem
but I am quite surprised that someone like me exist
on stress echo test just from walking 12 minutes (stage 4) i get 195 HR and i can go way beyond 200 if i ran, after 5 mins my heart rate was still 120 and this thing has been for years, 6 years? maybe, it came into my life even though I was active and has been playing basketball, after I get this problem, I cant persist playing for more than 10 mins, I'd get exhausted so much and unable to run anymore, this demotivates me to do exercise, many ppl thought because I didn't exercise, I get this problem, in fact, I do large amount of exercise in the past and still get this problem..its annoying.
Thanks for your comments, I'll list the answers to your questions below.
1) Yes, the stress test corroborated the results
2) No Echo yet but that might be the next step
3) BP is slightly above normal but I cant recall exact numbers
I thought max heart rate is the physical max your heart can pump. I guess I was wrong about that.
I recently came back from a hiking trip where I monitored my HR often and noticed that when hiking up the hilly trail my HR would go as high as 195. Thats just walking with a 10lb pack. I felt great but I thought that it was odd that I was able to reach my max HR just from walking. I hike a lot for my job so I am in pretty good hiking shape. I can hike for 8 hours with my HR above 180 the enitre time but running a quarter mile puts my HR in the 230 range instantly.
Hi Brian, Personally I think you should keep your exercise HR in a target zone, I found a good calculator here
http://exercise.about.com/cs/fitnesstools/l/bl_THR.htm
1. are you sure the equipment you are using to track the HR is accurate?
2. if it is, Have you had an echo yet? If it were me an echo would give me the most peace-of-mind.
3. What is your BP resting and when your heart rate is in the 200+ range?
4. Sans pain, shortness of breath, and/or edema your doctors won't worry too much about you. That + your age put you in a low risk category.
Remember that you should maintain your rate during exercise as: max HR=220-age
For my age (42) I'm not supposed to go above 142 which pretty much limits me to a brisk walk up hill or slow jog down hill :-(, and I used to be a nut about physical conditioning, in great shape. Endurance athletes like myself are 5x more likely to develop arrhythmias and this happened to me when I hit my 40s. I took my HR well above my 85% target and went into v-tach which self terminated thankfully but I want to avoid that again....
I've had every test under the sun including a full cardiac MRI, everything is normal so what I'm told is, "in a structurally normal heart, NSVT is benign". That hasn't given me a warm fuzzy.
My advise, don't take the training over board. I wish I could turn back the clock and just have been sensible about it.
It's good that you're getting checked out. Don't get too wrapped up in trying to be in top physical shape all the time. I haven't trained like that in years and I still look like I do and feel fine, it's better to look good :-)