Friday, August 31, 2007

Bradycardia.

The Great Bernard Hinault working his heart just a bit.


Or a resting heartrate of under 60 BPM.It is not unusual for endurance athletes to have resting heartrates even lower( 50 or lower) and Miguel Indurain, multiple Tour de France winner, has the Guiness record for his ( barely alive) 28 BPM!
When I was training for endurance and runnning 100 mile weeks and cycling and swimming the equivilant my HR was in the high forties but that was a LONG time ago and I weighed something like a buck thirty.
For the last twenty years the norm was more a resting level of mid 60's and my body got so used to doing max effort lifts in powerlifting that my hr would shoot up over 100 just thinking about any exertion! It would come down fairly quickly but lets just say I havent been in any kind of decent cardio shape since the mid nineties and that was do to all the fast, high volume box squat work and sled dragging GPP I was doing .
Things got really bad after 2000 and my back herniation when squats and deadlifts were limited to miniscule amounts of volume and traditional cardio just couldn't be done without a serious seizure in my lumbar spine.
The base kettlebell work I have been doing the last three years has really made a difference in my cardiovascular ability as well as my work capacity but things have really changed in the eight weeks I have been doing Kenneth Jay's max Vo2 training with kettlebell snatches.
I have been tracking my morning pulse and today hit a new low of 48 BPM! I took it twice because I couldn't beleive it! It's been dropping pretty consistently and I was very happy when it registered in the low fifties the last two weeks but getting below 50 is a whole nother level.
This is especially interesting since I am only doing the protocol one day a week( not 2-3 as prescribed) and doing no other 'cardio' work.
I knew something was up when I started getting 58 and 59 HR readings during the day at work. A couple years ago that would have read 85 just sitting around.
There is definitely something to this type of training and I am seeing it in my clients as well. Great stuff Kenneth and thanks for doing the research for this.
I now feel I can handle the original 36 sec on 36 off version of this protocol and will start alternating that with the 15/15 we are using now.
I love this type of training and love being in this type of condition even more.

9 comments:

Unknown said...

Slowing your heart rate and storing up beats for the later years. Good job. Mine usually hangs around 36 - 40 bpm. Wish i could say it was the kettlebells, it may be genetic...

Mark Reifkind said...

wow,thats low!!you and indurain.

Unknown said...

What's an indurain? If it's cool, I'll be one.

Mark Reifkind said...

He is miguel indurain, multiple tour de france winner with a resting hr of 28,lol.

Unknown said...

It's amazing how quickly I can read something and then forget it. Maybe that's why I keep having to re-read my manuals and books.

BJ Bliffert said...

Come on Rif, you have to show Merckx some love, too.

I'm a pretty big cycling fan, amazing athletes!

BJ

Fuzz said...

I remember hearing that Hockey great Gordie Howe amazed doctors with his low heart bpm. A possible reason he is in the record books for decades played in professionally.
Snatch has worked for me. Really feel more calm, cool, and collected then ever.

Mark Reifkind said...

Eddie M rocks BJ no doubt!

and Andy I feel the same, definitely a change in how I feel lately, calm and cool describes it well.

Royce said...

Damn Rif that's oustanding!!

205, 215, 217.5,205 x 1 x 6, 190 x 1 x 3, laterals, rear delts bw pushups

 Well this went great. not perfect but the basic premise worked and I'm happy. I was not optimistic at all about this at all given recen...