Using Heart rate monitoring to help with pacing.

IIRC, that for PwME, it's likely that the normal age-based calculation is likely to overestimate our aerobic thresholds, possibly considerably.

I'm sorry I don't have a reference for that!

 

I've heard our AT may be lower than normal. I think I'd start with a lower threshold and see what happens. Maybe making adjustments. But that's just me.

 

I think (damn you, memory!) that the lower AT has been established by researchers/clinicians. The data may be in those CPET papers - the Workwell etc. stuff.

 

Here's what I do

220-49 *0.6= 103

My base heart rate is lowish (59, 48-50 while asleep).

I treat 100 bpm as my limit. I can cope with a couple of minutes between 100-120 but will get PEM if it is more than 120.

What I notice is that the more things I do in the day there is a compounding effect that makes bringing my heart rate down to base progressively more difficult (needling longer periods of lying down). So say if I have a shower and walk around the corner to get some eggs, I then have to rest up for the rest of the day until my walk to pick my son up from school, otherwise half way to the school I get beyond 120. It doesn't help there is slight incline as you go over a railway bridge, but I just walk very very slowly up,that bit and normally it's ok. On another day I can potter all day with lots of sitting down and my heart rate never gets over 90.

I guess I have a wider range because my heart rate has always been large output, low bpm.

 

I think your calculations and examples would pretty much mine if I were to try them, Trish, except that my resting heart rate has always been 75+, even when I was ridiculously fit.

 

I'm still trying to find a HRM that is acceptable in terms of price, battery life, comfort, features, and above all an alarm that tells me, then, not a few minutes later, when my HR has gone above the limit I set.

They don't seem at all designed for it, they seem to be designed to tell you when HR drops below a threshold, not when it goes above one.

I did have one for a week or so before it went back (edit- in fact it was 2 but I couldn't figure out how to drive one of them, at all). I have a high resting heart rate, rarely falling below 80bpm even when lying down. I was seeing my HR go up to above 130 simply through standing up, above 140 from standing up in the bath, and routine lurching around would see it above 110 most of the time, with no "exertion". As my AT is somewhere around 102bpm (according to the formula) this probably negates the purpose of using one as it doesn't seem to be possible for me to do anything, at all, without exceeding my AT.

 

It can help to restructure activities a bit to avoid the worst problems. Eg, use a shower chair and rest for a minute or two after each bit of scrubbing, don't raise arms over your head (or tuck elbows down at least).

 

@Trish do you rest between showering/washing hair and getting dressed and drying hair? It's quite

a large chunk of activity in one go. I tend to have bath then rest with bathrobe on before dressing. The bathrobe saves having to dry myself.

And I don't usually wash my hair and shower on the same day. I do have longish hair though which is a bit of an ordeal to dry.

 

I'll remember that tip, Jan about leaving washing and drying my hair. It's not so much the washing and drying that's the problem, but the search and number process is quite energy intensive.

 

The topic of why I don't have a shower fitted is one for another thread, if it ever seems like a good idea, and feel like a pointless rant

I break every task up into absurdly small chunks as it is, I also use the dressing gown trick, tho I assumed it was coz I was inherently lazy not for any other reasons. Actually that's not entirely true, I use a dressing gown coz I rest before doing other things after a bath, like shaving or cleaning teeth - but lazy sounds so much more "normal" lol.

 

My get ready time is about 2 hrs ...I also rest on the bed after a shower. When I first got my HRM. I discovered that I wasn't putting my socks on efficiently. Bending is definitely not good same for putting on shoes...better to sit and bring your leg half way up rather than bend down to it.

 

I have a Beurer PM25 .

• High and low HR audio alarm.
  
• No phone needed,
• Watch is comfortable,
  
• with a clear display,
  
• Low power mode if it stops receiving a signal.
• Chest strap is not uncomfortable.
• Watch strap slightly on the short side.
• Battery life seems ok.
• Has day and date on display .
  
• can tell you how long you've been above a self set HR zone.
  
• Can't be too expensive as I bought it

The instruction manual is there if you want to examine further.

 

The Beurer PM25 is brilliant and very cheap. The only thing I didn't like about it was the chest-strap, which I found uncomfortable after a while, plus when I went to work in a white shirt it looked like a bra-strap from behind and I didn't want my students gossiping so I shelled out a large amount of money for my vivoactive HR which reads from my wrist in real time accurately enough for ME purposes and I don't look like a pervert.

 

Yeah, it's the chest strap that's putting me off, I already have a polar chest strap and whilst it's not actively "uncomfortable", I am always aware of it, and have never been able to wear it without being so.

I've also tried a vivoactive HR, after a day or so that was quite uncomfortable and it took over a week for the damage it did to my wrist to fade. It also seemed to think I needed to eat over 5000kcal a day for some reason, possibly because of my high resting heart rate, it went back. I've also tried a fenix 5, nice bit of kit, if you can drive it, I couldn't, not even to get a HR out of it.

I've been considering the new vivoactive 3, but, apart from looks and the fact it's a bit more solid, it's basically the HR, with the option of using straps that don't annoy my skin, hopefully. And it seems from some reports it may still be a bit buggy, and if I couldn't get the HR to report going up out of a HR zone, I see no reason why the version 3 would be any easier, whilst "some" of the other things it does would be nice, the must have is a HR alert when my AT is breached.

What's annoying is older models seemed to be able to do it, they had upper and lower bounds on heart rate zones, but firmware updates have removed this, or so it seems. Deal breakers are that it shouldn't upset my skin, and that it shouldn't break/fall apart when I move (which rules out the fitbits according to reviews lol).

I'll find something eventually

 

One of things i like about it is that the watch is good just as a watch, so if I decided I didn't like the strap or how it monitored, at least I hadn't wasted all the money.

 

I used to wear my HR monitor 24 hours a day, and take my BP atleast 10 times a day. Now I simply listen to my breathing, which has been a better source for me to determine how my pacing is coming along. Secondly, I notice my agility and coordination; when they start to decline I immediately stop everything, lie down, and relax.

 

I use the coordination one too...when I start dropping things that's when it's time to sit/lie down