Short Burst Exercise

[Guest guest]

I am hoping some of you may be more well versed on the subject of

HRM and VO2Max than I am and can help me out by answering a couple

of questions. I think the topic of short duration exercise is

relevant to CRON.

I have always taken a very slow, build up, type of approach to

exercise because I have CFS. Lately I have been able to do some

interval work on my elliptical, after a short warm-up, which seems

to be beneficial and certainly doesn't harm me.

I have been reading about the theory than long duration exercise is

pointless for protecting the heart (can it really be true that it

makes it smaller?) and that it does nothing for the situations where

the heart beats faster eg running for a bus. This made sense to me

as you wouldn't warm up in this scenario, just take your heart rate

up fast. The theory is that 10 minutes a day is all that is

required to train your heart this way although the `program' begins

at 20 minutes at a lesser exertion rate.

Even though it advocates training up to it using a perceived

exertion level of 1-10 and starting at 2 the first week, it still

means raising your heart rate quickly rather than a warm up. This

goes against everything I have been taught previously as regardless

the possibility of pulling muscles etc. (I did some stretching

before I started btw, not that this was suggested).

To cut a long story short, for me personally, it was a disaster.

The lack of a warm up was detrimental to my illness. No permanent

damage done but I won't be trying it that way again. So here's my

questions.

1. Although I can see a case for getting the heart used to a

rapid increase in rate, what about the lack of a warm up?

My second question is about VO2Max which my polar monitor records

for me. I have a very loose understanding of VO2Max but my figures

this morning surprised me. My VO2max 2 weeks ago was 37 and my Max

HR 173. Previously both have increased or decreased together. They

have been at this level for about 2-3 months without moving at all.

With a potential crash with CFS comes excessive calorie burning and

an increased resting pulse. I checked my figures to see how my body

was reacting to the exercise I attempted on Monday; I had been

tired Wednesday and Thursday and did half my usual swim Friday,

possibly a mistake.

My resting heart rate was up from about high 50's to high 60's and

my VO2Max was down from 37 to 36, both of which I expected. However

my MHR was up from 173 to 175, an all time high. This really

surprised me as it has always gone down in the past when my VO2Max

went down and by all accounts I was expecting it to be about 170

perhaps less. So:

2. Does anyone understand VO2Max and Max Heart Rate

calculations well enough to explain this phenomena to me, in

particular the relationship between the two?

Sorry if this sounds a bit pedantic. I know most of you won't

understand the mechanics of CFS, nor would I expect you to comment

on that but it's really important that I try and understand what's

happening on the exercise front. I can't attempt CRON until I can

stop excessive calorie burning. I won't be raising my heart rate so

quickly again, for a while if at all, so this is my only opportunity

to try and guess/understand if this strengthened my heart (or would

have done had I continued).

Many thanks Gay