Am I alive?

[Guest guest]

Francesca and all,

Your heartrate isn't too bad, Francesca...pretty normal actually, especially if you were walking around the store before you took your blood pressure.

A lower resting heartrate probably means that your heart is a good machine, pumping more efficiently than a couch-potato heart. (Exceptions might be a low pulse rate caused by thyroid disorders, electrolyte imbalances, some medications, death, and so forth.) If you want to improve your resting heart rate, try incorporating some short sprints into your aerobic routine, be it walking, biking, rowing, swimming, jogging, whatever. About 2/3 of the way into your workout, do a 30 second sprint wherein you go as hard as you can. (I call it "balls to the wall.") Recover, and repeat. Do this 3 or 4 times. Work up to sprints lasting 1 minute each. (I figure if I can go longer than a minute, I'm not really sprinting.)

I love this type of cardio training because it gives me the intensity needed to challenge my heart without being too intimidating. (I tell myself, "I can do ANYTHING for 30 seconds.") I wear a heartrate monitor and try to push my heartrate up to my high level during each sprint.

If anyone is interested in determining your target heartrate, I like the Karvonen formula much better than the standard one (220 minus your age.) Here's a link which will calculate your target heartrate using the Karvonen formula for you. It's very cool--check it out. (To ACCURATELY determine your resting heartrate, check your pulse immdediately upon awakening in the morning, before you get out of bed.)

http://members.tripod.com/~Fitz9898/hr.htm

Hugs to all

Suz

[Guest guest]

Hello Francesca:

I don't think it's wise to took the blood pressure

in supermarket machines: They are imprecise, they

make you worry and you should not trust in them.

I've buyed a sphigmomanometer

and now taking myself my blood pressure at home and

sometimes in phisicians.

I don't even trust in phisicians.

My blood pressure now is 98/54.

When I began a serious CR in 1999 my BP raised

to 140/85 and I became worried (because I was taking it

in a drugstore that had a unaffered sphigmomanometer.

When I've buyed mine, my doubted vanished (because

never in my life my BP reached that value...) so ...

carefull with these instruments ...

[]s

Gandhi.

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[Guest guest]

Ghandi: welcome to the support list!! You are absolutely right. I don't

trust them. I can only hope that my BP is that low. I do assume that it's

somewhere in that ball park. I just use the supermarket machine for

convenience when I'm in the store shopping anyway.

I rarely am at the doctor's anymore. I would have to make a special appt

for bloodwork/checkup as illness is not part of my life since CR began!!

Isn't it great? Sometimes I take it for granted and forget that I haven't

had a need to see a doctor for a long time.

on 9/22/2002 8:11 AM, ronaldo.luiz.alonso at ronaldo.luiz.alonso@...

wrote:

> Hello Francesca:

>

> I don't think it's wise to took the blood pressure

> in supermarket machines: They are imprecise, they

> make you worry and you should not trust in them.

> I've buyed a sphigmomanometer

> and now taking myself my blood pressure at home and

> sometimes in phisicians.

> I don't even trust in phisicians.

> My blood pressure now is 98/54.

> When I began a serious CR in 1999 my BP raised

> to 140/85 and I became worried (because I was taking it

> in a drugstore that had a unaffered sphigmomanometer.

> When I've buyed mine, my doubted vanished (because

> never in my life my BP reached that value...) so ...

> carefull with these instruments ...

>

> []s

> Gandhi.