CAN GYM GIVE YOU A HEART ATTACK? IS YOUR HEART STRONG ENOUGH?
Presently, there are many news about the deaths of fit people while doing workouts. Famous comedian Raju Srivastava died of a cardiac arrest while running on a treadmill. Many gym goers get a cardiac arrest and become permanent heart patients. Even the so called “Bodybuilders” are not untouched from this. Is doing gym the reason behind it? Are we mindlessly overloading our bodies? Each muscle in your body requires a continuous supply of blood . If your muscles have grown as a result of strength training but no exercise has been given to the cardiac muscles, heart will find it difficult to pump the required amount of blood. Literally, strength training makes your body muscles outpace the cardiac muscles.
There are three layers of cardiac muscles in the heart. Myocardium is the layer which squeezes the heart to pump the blood in the body and relaxes to take deoxygenated blood back from muscles and oxygenated blood from the lungs. The strength of this muscle decides how many times our heart has to beat to make the oxygenated blood reach its designated place. As you keep on working out, heart rate increases and Myocardium gets exercise. It recovers and grows when nutrition is consumed. The stronger Myocardium muscle needs to contract lesser number of times per minute and relaxes more in between contractions. Your heart becomes more efficient. This improves heart health and provides longevity to the heart. Myocardium gets trained in alignment with the body if whole body endurance exercises like running, swimming, rowing, trekking etc. are performed regularly. If you have been focused on muscle building alone and one fine day you decide to sprint on the treadmill, you are inviting death!
RHR (RESTING HEART RATE)
This is the rate at which your heart beats while you are at rest. Best time is to measure it is when you have been 1 hour into the bed. Usain Bolt’s RHR is 33. This also decides how much intensity you can put into your workouts.
TRAINING HEART RATE AND INTENSITY
There is a limit to the rate at which your heart can beat as per your age. Maximum Heart Rate (MHR) is given by the formula– 220 – Age in years. If you are 30 years old, your heart can beat at 190 BPM maximum.
Training Heart Rate (THR) is the rate at which your heart should beat during training to achieve the desired results.
THR is given by:
THR = percentage of MHR which should not exceed 90 percent even in the case of elite athletes.
But here comes the role of Resting Heart Rate (RHR). If your RHR is low, you will be putting in lower energy even at higher heart rates as compared to your counterparts. To achieve more intensity, you will have to put load more than someone who has a higher RHR. Here comes the role of Heart Rate Reserve (HRR) which is given by:
HRR = MHR -RHR
Now THR = PERCENTAGE OF HRR
For example, if there are two athletes A and B both age 30. A has RHR = 60, while B has RHR = 40. Let us calculate their THR for 60 percent intensity.
| A | B | |
| MHR | 220 – 30 = 190 | 220 – 30 = 190 |
| HRR | 190 – 60 = 130 | 190 – 40 = 150 |
| THR (at 60 percent intensity) | 130×60/100=78 | 150×60/100=90 |
To achieve 60 percent intensity, A needs to reach 78 BPM during workouts, while B needs to achieve 90 BPM. The person with the stronger heart has to work harder to achieve the intensity, as his heart is strong enough at the lower BPM only. It means during a tailored workout where A and B perform the activity as a group, A will be struggling while B will be enjoying and will hardly feel any fatigue.
A strong heart with a lower BPM at rest is called an Athlete’s Heart. If you have an Athlete’s Heart, your cardiac muscles will be able to take the load of extra muscles you gain. Building a stronger heart should be achieved before gaining more muscle.
STAY FIT!! STAY HEALTHY!!
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