rhythm changes...

When I finished last week's post, it was about noon, but apparently I was not done with the races. That afternoon I was doing some chores--I don't know what now--and my hr jumped up to 139. I relaxed it down to 76 bpm. Later in the pm we had to meet with a person who wanted all of our remaining packing boxes from our storage unit. I humped some while he and Jan humped the rest. My hr jumped up to 160 bpm during this activity. I believe that it resolved itself during a slow down of activity and some slow breathing.

So, in one day I had 4 episodes!  That seemed to me to be pretty self-limiting. Thus, this past week I did no workouts. However, when our daughter came home for the weekend we were very active. We humped and put together some gorilla rack storage for the garage--you know the kind where if you know what you're doing it takes one hour, but when you do it, it takes two. That was on Saturday. That was also the day to load the tool box. Quite a bit of activity.

Sunday we decided to get a work bench that matched the tool box. That was 6 ft assembled and we could not lift it without help from the store. We opened the packaging in the 4Runner and removed individual parts so that we could manage the load. So, another one hour project that took 2 hours. Alot of hands and knees stuff on that assembly.

Throughout this activity, the old heart was steady. That led me to arise this morning and once again approach a workout. On this occasion I adopted the successful strategy of the prior week. Omit the sprints from the bike ride; cut the reps in half on the weights while maintaining the weight. Success! The old heart stayed between 85 and 91 on the  bike ride. (My resting hr on morning arising is mid- to upper-60s.). Hopefully over a half hour that is sufficient increase to produce somewhat of an aerobic effect. It was in a similar state during the lifts. 

We'll try again Wednesday to see whether several outings a week are possible.

I got rhythm...

Well, after recording my first gallops about 10 days ago, I have had 3 more episodes. The first was a week ago during my workout. It occurred while I was on the abductor/adductor machine. This machine exercises the muscles on the inner and outer thighs. One either pushes the knees apart against resistance, or starting apart brings them together, also against resistance. I cannot remember which is which, nor which provoked the occurrence. As before, I stopped the activity, commenced my cognitive relaxation therapy and felt the hr--which was at 137--come down to normal. 

Then there was a hiatus of one week, that is, until today. During the week I was pretty careful with the alcohol consumption--no whiskey--but an occasional glass of wine. We entertained last evening and I had several glasses of wine. I also did an easier workout 48 hours after the initial occurrence on the machine. I cut my sets in half and still felt good about the overall exertion. There was no flutter. Friday we blew off the workout all together. For the most part it was a pretty sedentary 5 days.

This morning the first high rate--that's right there was more than one--occurred during the cool down on the recumbent bicycle. I ride for 30 minutes without much resistance at 60 rpms and every 5 minutes do a 1 min easy sprint, say up to  80 rpms. I have been doing the sprint based on what I read about interval training for several months now. My hr went up to 147 during the 27th minute after I had cut the (minimal) resistance and slowed the rpms to 40 or so. Again the relaxation worked, but it seemed to take longer.

Then I did all my lifts without a problem (2 sets each of 20 reps) until I was once again on the adductor/abductor machine. My hr went up during the third of the 4 sets and again was brought down by relaxation therapy. Again it seemed to take longer. But, as I am not recording the length of time it takes to make the change occur, I cannot be sure of this. I  will have to think about starting a stop watch and recording if I want to pursue this.

I don't know what variables are responsible for this. When I felt it start on the recumbent bike I knew exactly what it was after the first misfire. Not so much on the second instance. Is it happening more with lower body exertion? Maybe working the lower limbs changes bp more. I have no idea.

Still: no panic. We'll keep to schedule and see what happens...