Investigating Heart Rate: Fill & Download for Free

There are lots of reasons for raised heart rate, anxiety, stress, pain, exercise, shortness of breath, use of medication.As long as the heart rate settles quickly and isn't associated with collapse, chest pain or dizziness, it may be a benign symptom.Unexplained tachycardia (fast heart rate) should always be discussed with a medical professional as it possibly requires investigation.There have been studies into the effect of coughing on heart rate, the increase is usually not huge and is not sustained.Cardiovascular response to coughing: its value in the assessment of autonomic nervous control.

Why is it ok for someone's heart rate to go up substantially (over 150 BPM) while working out but dangerous when (s)he is not working out?Because that elevated heart rate is a normal physiological response to an increased oxygen demand.When you are physically active, parts of your body—which parts depends on what you are doing, but in general whatever skeletal muscles are involved in the activity—start depleting their internal stores of ATP rapidly. For a short time, these can be replenished without oxygen, or with normal oxygen delivery at typical resting-ish heart rates, but once the rate of ATP to ADP conversion exceeds the rate of ADP to ATP replenishment, those parts signal that they need increased oxygen. To provide this, the heart rate (and respiratory rate and depth) increases until those body parts signal they no longer need the additional support, or until the active person exceeds their heart’s ability to keep up. In the latter case, those active parts start burning through their anaerobic ATP-regeneration tools and start to slow down on their own.When the body does not have any ongoing signals that increased oxygen is necessary, the heart and respiratory rates return to a typical range.In a person who is not active, an abnormally elevated heart rate can signal that the body is having a difficult time keeping up with oxygen demand for metabolic processes, processes which under normal circumstances will not cause the heart rate to be abnormally elevated. The cutoff of 150 beats per minute for a person who is not active is a guideline, but rates above 150 are pretty abnormal for an adult who is not actively engaged in physical activity, and the cause of such a rate should be investigated and resolved.

I have been working out for my entire life and I have come to believe these few things about exercise:The people I see running are people who are physiologically built for running, particularly the distance runners. Ditto for people who ride bicycles, swim, do crossfit, etc. The form of exercise invariably chooses the person rather than the other way around. Those who excel will generally be the ones whose physical make up “fits” the exercise best. It is not a matter of mental toughness or preparation or anything else: running likes runners, swimming likes swimmers, and strength training likes strong people.Bodybuilders have known that for quite a while; they know that there are certain characteristic body types which are better “canvases” upon which to build a “classical” physique. Which leads me to number 3…Bodybuilders have more knowledge about “fitness” than the fitness industries would like you to believe. Let me say that I have never been a bodybuilder, but in my experience, whatever people are looking for in a fitness or dietary regime, the bodybuilding community has already investigated, tried, and curated to some degree.So am I suggesting that a person capitulate completely to “bro science” and drop out of yoga and spin class and commit to splits for 6 days a week?Not at all.But you should know that if what you are seeking is to change your look or your size to any marked degree you are going to eventually find yourself dipping into the big book of bodybuilding.On the other hand, if you are simply looking to move around or increase your heart-rate for a while a few times a week, a gym membership is probably a waste of money; you could do just as much by up keeping your house and yard or walking your dog on a regular basis.