All Day Heart-Rate ... weird results freaking me out

Former Member over 6 years ago

Hey guys,

First off, I've seen lots of people claim the heart-rate sensor on the watch is off "by 20 beats" or whatever. I dunno, maybe for them but definitely not for me. I've compared it to the results from the Garmin Heart Rate Monitor chest strap, my blood pressure machine and also just taking my pulse rate manually, and the watch is pretty much exactly on-the-money every time. So it's not that.

But I've been noticing some weird things with my heart rate. I'm wondering if this is just the result of suddenly have all-day-access to heart-rate data that I never had before (and nobody has really had until recently), or if I should go and see a cardiologist or something. I'm thinking that I'm probably just being hyper-sensitive and it's nothing.

Anyway...

First, I noticed that my heart-rate was exceptionally high. Like hovering around 90-100 when I was hanging around doing nothing, watching TV or whatever. And if I just got up and walked to get a cup of coffee or something, it would go to 120. If I went up a flight of stairs it would go to 140-150. Not for long - maybe 20 or 30 seconds and then go back down to "normal" (90-100). This weirded me out a bit, I always thought of myself as someone with a fairly slow heart rate, so I decided to quit all drinking (I usually have a few beers after work), all coffee and all tobacco (I used to take Swedish snus, which is kind of like chewing tobacco).

As soon as I quit all those things, my heart rate went back down to what I'd consider normal (usually somewhere between about 55 - 75 when I'm doing nothing, and going up to about 90-100 if I move around and do things). I still goes to about 140 if I go up a flight of stairs, but goes back down to about ~65 shortly afterwards (within 10-20 seconds).

So everything seemed fine, until last night I was sitting (on the toilet) and happened to open the Connect App on my phone and noticed my heart-rate was 45! I thought I'll just sit here and wait and see how low it goes and it went down to 41 before I kind of freaked out and got up and started moving around again (and it went back to ~65).

At night-time, it's usually about 55 while I sleep.

Background info, 40-year-old male, 95kg (210lbs), 182cm (a scratch under six feet). Not very fit, but not inactive either. I've always lifted weights and done a bit of cardio, but I just started taking it seriously. No family history of heart trouble, blood pressure is normal, nothing weird when I run or exercise (I can get it up to 180+ if sprinting up a hill, and it goes back down pretty quick when I stop), and no other alarming symptoms.

Should I book at doctor's appointment to get this check out just to be safe, or does this all sound fairly normal?

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

I understand some may have a knee-jerk reaction to the terminology, especially those who wear their low-heart-rate on their sleeve as a badge of honour. But the fact is that sinus brachicardia is an alteration of heart function in highly trained people and it is without a shadow of a doubt a medical condition. It is mostly benign, so it's nothing to worryabout, although in some cases it can lead to complications in old age.

They're just the facts whether you want to accept them or not.

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

Thanks Carl for your useful and on-topic reply. :)

Yes, that sounds likely to me. Without going into too much detail. :D

Regarding the other stuff, I suspect maybe the Brazillian JuJitsu is just too full on. Maybe something to do with my breathing or something, I dunno. I don't get these strange reactions when I go for a run or do boxing training, it's just JuJitsu. Anyway, I went back last week and got a similar uncomfortable reaction where my heart was beating hard and fast all night after JuJitsu training, to the point where I couldn't get to sleep until 1am or 2am because I was so "amped up". I actually wore my chest strap heart-monitor to see if I could get a better insight into what's going on. It seems pretty normal.

0 CarlHaines over 6 years ago

I'll start with this. Relax. It is good for your health and heart. Heart rate does not directly correlate to a heart attack. Might be a good time to read up on heart attack warning signs and symptoms just so you know should it ever happen to you. They do say that an elevated HR could be a sign of increase heart attack risk. But that could also mean that having poor fitness increases the heart attack risk because fitness does affect resting HR.

Noting the training effect in the images you posted. How have you set your maximum heart rate? If you are using the 220 - (your age). I think Garmin defaults to this when you do not enter your max HR manually. That formula can be quite a bit different from your actual max HR. I don't think that you will necessarily get this from your scheduled stress test. To get close to what your max HR is requires a rather strenuous activity. You'll want to quit the activity before reaching max HR. The training effect as well as other data on the watch require that you have a reasonably accurate max heart rate.

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

I understand some may have a knee-jerk reaction to the terminology, especially those who wear their low-heart-rate on their sleeve as a badge of honour. But the fact is that sinus brachicardia is an alteration of heart function in highly trained people and it is without a shadow of a doubt a medical condition. It is mostly benign, so it's nothing to worryabout, although in some cases it can lead to complications in old age.

They're just the facts whether you want to accept them or not.

I´m not question this fact, but It´s not the same as a low heart rate is in fact is sinus brachicardia. Maybee you should be more humble and admit your logical error. There is nothing in your wiki links that says that a low heart rate is sinus brachicardia. All they are saying is that sinus brachicardia gives a low heart rate!

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

I'll start with this. Relax. It is good for your health and heart. Heart rate does not directly correlate to a heart attack. Might be a good time to read up on heart attack warning signs and symptoms just so you know should it ever happen to you. They do say that an elevated HR could be a sign of increase heart attack risk. But that could also mean that having poor fitness increases the heart attack risk because fitness does affect resting HR.

Noting the training effect in the images you posted. How have you set your maximum heart rate? If you are using the 220 - (your age). I think Garmin defaults to this when you do not enter your max HR manually. That formula can be quite a bit different from your actual max HR. I don't think that you will necessarily get this from your scheduled stress test. To get close to what your max HR is requires a rather strenuous activity. You'll want to quit the activity before reaching max HR. The training effect as well as other data on the watch require that you have a reasonably accurate max heart rate.

Thanks Carl. I haven't set my maximum heart rate, no. I have noticed that the watch has automatically adjusted the "zones" on serveral occassion though. They seem to be getting higher. I don't know what that signifies.

Anyway, as I said, it's not about the HR while doing JuJitsu. That seems normal to me. It's how it stays quite high all night afterwards. And even if it drops down to a lower number, just walking up a flight of stairs will send it racing again. It feels kind of unpleasent, as if I'm really amped up and "on edge", even when I'm just trying to chill out. This reaction will last basically until I fully recover from the workout (a day or so).

0 CarlHaines over 6 years ago

Sounds like you had a hard workout. Your heart rate will be elevated for a time after a workout. How much depends upon how hard the workout was and the duration. You could also look up EPOC (Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption) aka afterburn. Your body is recovering and replenishing energy stores after an activity. If you do a workout in the morning and then continue to wear the watch for the rest of the day and allow it to track your HR, you can see the trend in the heart rate graph for that day. You can see it if you do an evening workout too, but the recovery may stretch into the next day.

Max HR. I'm guessing the watch started with the 220-your age formula and then has adjusted the value as you have exceeded the current max HR value. The max HR value determines HR training zone as well as the training effect values. I'm guessing that you do not use the training zones so I would not be too concerned with not having an accurate max HR.

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

Well ... I sort of do. When I'm running, I try and keep it in the "green zone". When it goes over into "threshold" or "max", then I generally either slow down or start walking until it goes back into the green. I'm not an experienced runner at all. I don't know if that's what I should be doing or what.

And yes, the BJJ is a damn hard workout. lol. Thanks for the tip on EPOC. I will Google it.

0 KrzysiekJar over 6 years ago

Hopefully it was just overtraining - my RHR is getting back to normal :)ciq.forums.garmin.com/.../1350361.jpg