Before and after (graphs)

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Ola Thoresen

Well-known member
Joined
Jan 28, 2013
Messages
68
Location
Oslo, Norway
I have collected a few graphs from my exercise-app that are quite interesting.

I had my surgery almost a year ago (January 3. 2013), but before that I did not believe I had any symptoms of a heart problem. I exercised quite frequently (2-3 times a week), and had done so for a couple of years. I did mostly stationary biking but was also quite active in other ways. At new years eve, just three days before surgery, I was going skiing (cross country) for almost 30 km, and felt fine.

But in retrospect, when I look at the data, it is quite obvious that something has changed.

So lets start with a graph of my heart rate during a 30 minute stationary biking back in November 2012. This is a typical graph from that period:

Excercise-2012-11-19-small.png


This is my regular interval workout. I do the exact same today, which we will get back to later in the post.
As you can see, it is quite "saw tooth"-shaped. My max pulse was around 160, and as soon as the more heavy intervals started, I climbed quite fast up to max, but also the pulse came really quickly down again as soon as the lighter intervals started.


Now, lets jump forward to late January. This is only three weeks post op. (27. January). I felt better than ever, but of course I did not push myself harder than I thought would be safe.

Excercise-2013-01-27-small.png


You can still see some saw teeth, and as you can see, I took it quite easy. Maxing out at around 125 - 130 bpm. Still, it seems quite good to be less than a month after such a big operation. You just have to give it to the body, it recovers extremely well...


In April I was really getting back to real exercise, and not holding back on purpose:

Excercise-2013-04-22-small.png


However, I was still using beta blockers, and they obviously did work. They kept my max pulse down (still around 165-170), but as you can see, the graph is now much smoother. Even if I pushed myself hard, I did not get the really high spikes with heart rate dropping almost immediately when the easier intervals set in.

Here is a graph from today, December 1:

Excercise-2013-12-01-small.png


The intervals are still visible, but only just. The body seems to be able to work at a much higher heart rate over time, and also the max is now closer to 180.

It was quite surprising for me to see this when I first started looking into it. As I said, I did not think I had any problems at all a year ago, but still the data shows that at least something has changed - hopefully to the better.
All the graphs are from doing the same workout, at the same kind of bike, at the same place, so they should be directly comparable. I have not really gotten back to old habits of exercising 2-3 times a week. Getting a bit lazy, and only doing it once/twice a week now, but even so, the results are showing.
 
Are you still taking the beta blocker?

I had avr in early June and have experienced a significant change in my workouts. I don't have any data, but wow what a difference.
 
I am not sure how I should interpretate the graphs either.

Initially I thought that the saw tooth shaped graphs were a good thing. And reading other posts about interval exercise seems to sort of confirm this.

Like from this article: http://articles.latimes.com/2008/sep/29/health/he-askthetrainers29

We take our clients in and out of three zones: Zone 1 is 65% to 75% of your maximum heart rate, and Zone 2 is 80% to 85% of your maximum heart rate. Zone 3 is 85% to 90% of your maximum heart rate

For me, that means something like:
Zone1: 120 - 140
Zone2: 145 - 155
Zone3: 155 - 165

You can go up into Zone 2 for three minutes, then down to Zone 1 for three minutes. Then you can work a 2-1 ratio of work and rest. A good rule of thumb is -- and this is where the heart-rate monitor comes in handy -- that when you drop down a zone, you should see a 20-beat-per-minute drop in your heart rate within one minute. That's a good indicator that you're in the recovery zone.

So this is basically what I was doing a year ago.
So that indicates that I was doing the right thing.

On the other hand, the fact that I am now able to maintain around 170-180 bpm for a longer time is probably a good thing. Also, I believe I still have a lot of potential to get in even better shape than now.
So my main issue now is that the body does not re-enter the "recovery zone", but I believe that if I keep on exercising a few times a week and push myself even further, I will get back to this saw tooth again, as my stamina gets better.
I hope I will see that the pulse goes down during the "rest" periods like before, but that both my max, and the average pulse is much higher during exercise than it was a year ago.
 
Ola while I was on beta blockers I couldn't get my heart rate above 120's no matter how hard I tried. I felt I had more reserve capacity while I was exercising yet I couldn't access it. I was greatly relieved after both my surgeries once I could stop beta blockers, the spin bike sessions no longer felt constrained and I now feel like I can work to something like my true capacity.
 
Interesting. My max heart rate 2 years post op will only reach about 145 and frequently less and then I'm gasping for breath. I aspire to 170! I get dropped on hills by everyone, including women much larger than me who don't do much exercise, so it's definitely impacting me.

Have you looked at power output before and after surgery? That would really tell the story about athletic improvements!
 
I never knew what my max HR was before OHS, mostly because I didn't care. It was what it was and I always gauged exertion by the intensity of my breathing. Besides, there were no HRMs back then.

Many years after the valve job I did measure it a few times on a treadmill pulse meter and it exceeded what it should have been based on age. What matters most to me is the resting HR. I know I'm in good condition if I can keep it in the low 50s and if it is close to 60 in the morning I haven't recovered from previous workouts, so it tells me it's time for a rest day.
 
I actually have a pretty high resting heart rate. Still around 80, but I hope it will be lower as my body adopts even more to the new valve.
 
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