{"id":677,"date":"2014-04-29T16:51:17","date_gmt":"2014-04-29T21:51:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jenniferfitz\/?p=677"},"modified":"2016-11-11T19:42:33","modified_gmt":"2016-11-12T00:42:33","slug":"heart-rate-training-for-fitness-in-chronic-illness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/jenniferfitz\/2014\/04\/heart-rate-training-for-fitness-in-chronic-illness\/","title":{"rendered":"Heart Rate Training for Fitness in Chronic Illness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\n<\/p>

I was chatting with Rebecca Frech<\/a> the other week, who is both blessedly familiar with intense fitness trainfully, and dreadfully familiar with chronic illness.\u00a0 One of the ironies of my own recent illness, I told her, was that some of the most useful information came from articles geared towards serious athletes.\u00a0 One of those useful clues has been information on heart rate monitoring as a way to avoid overtraining.<\/p>\n

The situation normal people face:<\/strong> In the quest to get fit, you might push yourself even when you ought to be resting, and sabotage your race results in the process<\/a>.\u00a0 (I suspect among ordinary pleasantly-plump middled-aged weekend warriors, it\u2019s more common to be waylaid by injury than exhaustion. But among competitive racing enthusiasts, yes, this happens.)<\/p>\n

The situation people with chronic illness face:<\/strong> Every day is a workout.\u00a0 Hey! I took a shower! Look at me exercising!<\/em><\/p>\n

Challenge #1: Exercise \u2014 intentional, targeted, go-to-the-gym type exercise \u2014 really does help with many chronic conditions.<\/p>\n

Challenge #2: You want to do as much as you can in your ordinary life.\u00a0 Put away laundry, go to the kids\u2019 soccer game, all that stuff.<\/p>\n

Challenge #3: It can be very hard to know whether to get up and push yourself, or whether to kick back and rest.<\/p>\n

Fatigue is a treacherous clue.\u00a0 You might feel tired due to depression, or discouragement, or boredom \u2014 maybe getting up and doing something is the solution.\u00a0 You might feel ready to keep going, when really you should rest, because you\u2019re excited, or committed, or passionate about whatever\u2019s before you.\u00a0 This is exactly the same conundrum elite athletes face, only on a micro-scale.<\/p>\n

So the thing I\u2019ve been experimenting with \u2014 your results may vary and please oh please talk to your doctor before you try this at home \u2014 is using my heart rate as an indicator of whether to be relatively active, or whether to stop everything and spend a day putting my feet up.\u00a0 Three useful measures:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. At-rest heart rate.\u00a0 If I\u2019m laying down, relaxed, my heart rate ought to come down to what I\u2019ve identified as my usual at-rest heart rate.\u00a0 When I\u2019ve been doing too much, that at-rest rate will gradually creep up \u2014 I see about a ten-point spread between my usual at-rest rate and my \u201cWhat the heck have you been doing, Jennifer?!!\u201d rate.<\/li>\n
  2. Heart rate during activity.\u00a0 If I\u2019m up and doing some normal activity, with proper rest my heart rate will rise to a fairly predictable level.\u00a0 (Varies depending on the activity.)\u00a0 When I\u2019m overtired, my heart rate will rise signicantly higher (ten, twenty, maybe even thirty points higher) for the same intensity of activity.<\/li>\n
  3. Heart rate recovery.\u00a0 It\u2019s normal for your heart rate to increase with activity. When you lay back down, it should go back down to the at-rest rate fairly quickly.\u00a0 When it takes a long time for my heart rate to slow down again, that\u2019s a sign I need more rest.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    How do you get all these measures? By taking your pulse.\u00a0 If you have a heart rate monitor, you could use that.\u00a0 I don\u2019t, but I do own a cheap discount-pharmacy pulse oximeter, and that\u2019s convenient for taking lots of measurements.\u00a0 Or you can just do it the old fashioned way with your finger and an analog clock with a sweep-second hand, which I also sometimes do.<\/p>\n

    [Tip: Once you have a general idea of your usual heart rates, you can make some short cuts for taking your pulse \u2014 ie, you can quickly know your heart rate is below 80bpm if it beats less than 20 times in fifteen seconds.\u00a0 If it beats more than 30 times in 15 seconds, you know it\u2019s over 120 bpm.]<\/p>\n

    Depending on your illness, you\u2019ll probably have some other symptoms you need to watch as well.\u00a0\u00a0 I can say that since I\u2019ve started using my heart rate as a guide to overall fatigue, I\u2019ve been able to be much more active overall, and when I do more than I should, the recovery time is much less than it had been previously.<\/p>\n

    Obviously the ideal is to not get overtrained, but to figure out a lifestyle that\u2019s exactly right, neither too much nor too little.\u00a0 But given that the nature of illness is constant change, this might be helpful for a few readers.\u00a0 Good luck!<\/p>\n

    \u00a0<\/p>\n

    Related:<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Rebecca Hamilton on her experience with exercise and rheumatoid arthritis<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    The Wall Street Journal<\/em> on exercise in chronic heart failure<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    Circulation<\/em> on exercise and pulmonary hypertension<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    Obesity Panacea (an exercise physiology blog) on exercise and blood sugar levels<\/a>, and on the difference between \u201cactive\u201d and \u201csedentary\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    \u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I was chatting with Rebecca Frech the other week, who is both blessedly familiar with intense fitness trainfully, and dreadfully familiar with chronic illness.\u00a0 One of the ironies of my own recent illness, I told her, was that some of the most useful information came from articles geared towards serious athletes.\u00a0 One of those useful […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[205,6],"tags":[206,207,208],"class_list":["post-677","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-disability-chronic-illness","category-stick-that-corner","tag-exercise","tag-heart-rate-training","tag-obesity-panacea"],"yoast_head":"\nHeart Rate Training for Fitness in Chronic Illness<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I was chatting with Rebecca Frech the other week, who is both blessedly familiar with 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