Commuting - Commuting and your health

Hey folks, today I donated blood at the local Red Cross and the mini-physical they performed before poking a hole in me yielded the following: a BP of 130/70 and a pulse of 50 !!

The BP is fine but the pulse of 50 is the real surprise for me. I never take my resting pulse rate as I'm not the type to concern myself about such things. For reference, I'm 42, 6'3", 215 pounds and work at a Silicon Valley pressure-cooker job (not a complaint but a choice).

Sure, I run a bunch but I'm certain that bike-commuting alone is responsible for the lion's share of the low pulse. No fewer than 3 Red Cross personnel made mention of the low rate.

So, next time you're contemplating ... bike in or ride ... bike in or ride ... take stock once again in the health bennies of bike-commuting.

I donate blood regurlly and boy am I always happy with my results the girls say that a lot of people my age have trouble with the blood pressure thing

46 6"3" 203lbs 130/70 or there abouts resting hb 60 so I got to work on that

I get the same response. 42, lawyer (no stress there then :)). Resting rate in morning high 40's. BP great.

Funny thing. I give platelets and last time they could tell I'd ben eating fatty food (I normally don't) in the last 24 hours because my plasma frothed.

Made me think twice about having any other fried breakfast. (I only succumbed because I was revisiting old haunts in Aberdeen and had a vegetarian fry up in the Inversnecky Cafe)

Reminds me that maybe I should get my resting heart-rate tested. Yes, cycling is great cardio-vascular exercise.

Originally posted by Andy Dreisch
Hey folks, today I donated blood at the local Red Cross and the mini-physical they performed before poking a hole in me yielded the following: a BP of 130/70 and a pulse of 50 !!

So, next time you're contemplating ... bike in or ride ... bike in or ride ... take stock once again in the health bennies of bike-commuting.
Ya, the old pump is really doing a whole lot better in my 43 year-old body than it did in my 23 year-old body!

I think I may aim to increase my endurance even more in years to come!

Thanks for the encouragement, bro Andy!

:thumbup:

Originally posted by Chris L
Reminds me that maybe I should get my resting heart-rate tested.
Ya, Chris, I'd like to see that one.

But you may need a calendar instead of a watch.

:shameful patronizing brown-nosed smiley:

My BP usually measures to about 120/65 or so.

There is a resting heart rate window on the tester too, but I never thought to check it.

peas,

Jester

Several months ago I happened to check my pulse for some reason, and I was rather suprised that a minute was already over by the time my count reached 50. I've never really tracked it, but I knew that was pretty low (apparently "normal" is 60-100bpm). Since then, I tend to check it fairly often, having some sort of perverted "how low can I go?" contest with myself. I just clocked a 44 (which is about as low as I've ever measured) a minute ago while sitting here in the office. I have no idea what my blood pressure is, but it's always been pretty low and I still get dizzy sometimes if I stand up too fast, so I assume it's still low.

I'm sure genetics has a lot to do with it (oh yeah, I'm 6'4", 180lbs., 26 years old), but I'm definitely agree that the biking is essential too. In high school I ran track and cross-country, which put me in excellent shape, but I never recall my resting heart rate being this low then. These days, it HAS to be the biking, since that's the only "excercise" I ever do. On top of that, I have a measly 3.5-mile commute, so you may not even have to do a LOT of biking to see results; I almost get the feeling that the long-term regularity is more important. My heart must have said "ok, I guess this moron is going to do this every freakin' day, I might as well go ahead and reconfigure to make life easier on myself."

I like the idea that over the course of a day, my heart is beating only half the number of times that the hearts of some other people are beating. Do I get to save up all those unused beats can cash them in later in life?

And Chris, I don't think you have to see a doctor to check your resting heart rate...all it takes is a finger and a timer, right?

Originally posted by Neil G.
... Since then, I tend to check it fairly often, having some sort of perverted "how low can I go?" contest with myself. ...
Yeah, I hoping I don't fall into that trap. Another benefit of commuting for commuting's sake (rather than commuting in order to train for something else, like a triathlon) is that the routine of it makes monitoring heart rates and now pulse rates almost superfluous. You're in it to get to work and back, not from a training perspective. It's decidely low tech. Every so often you get to peer into the "metrics" resulting from your work, as I did yesterday. I'll wait until the next blood donation to track it again. (BTW, I'm a "preemie" donor so the Red Cross is always out to suck my blood, so to speak, so it won't be long.)


Originally posted by Pete Clark
... Thanks for the encouragement, bro Andy! ...
No sweat. Maybe this will encourage some of the lurker/fencesitters to make the leap into commuting.

Originally posted by Neil G.
And Chris, I don't think you have to see a doctor to check your resting heart rate...all it takes is a finger and a timer, right?

I genuinely belive I would get so psyched up about having it "tested" that it probably wouldn't be a "resting" heart rate in all likelihood. :D

Best time to check your resting heart rate is in the AM. Get out of bed, go to the bathroom. Get back in bed and lay there for a few minutes. Then check it.

If you use this simple routine of checking your resting heart rate, you will be able to note when your training may have slipped over into over-training (resting heart rate will be higher than it normally is).

BB

On several occasions during business meetings, I have clocked my resting pulse at just under 45 BPM. I would like to claim that this is a sign of fitness, but I suppose it could have been attributable to boredom. Because of genetics, I have to maintain a fairly strict low-fat, low-sodium dietary regimen to control my BP; exercise alone does not suffice. (My mother and her mother both had extremely high blood pressure.)

Cycling or jogging has been part of my commute for almost my entire career.

That's right, John. Exercise in and of itself does not prevent all issues of heart, blood pressure, etc... . Diet is extremely important - as is genetics. Unfortunately, a lot of the damage is done between the ages of 20 and 40 when far too many do not remain active and the build of damage is done.

We've all heard the stories of "in shape" athletes, runners, etc... that dropped dead of a heart attack or a stroke at a young age. Most notable in the running and cycling world - Jim Fixx (known for his running books) had clogged arteries with cholesterol which led to an "in shape" athlete's death. And Ed Burke (known for his physiology and technology work in the cycling world) dropped dead last year of a massive heart attack on a ride in Colorado at age 53. Interesting that both men had become sedentary and overweight following their college age years, then returned to their respective sports to get back into shape and became well known for their work and writings.

In the case of Ed, this linked post below is worth a read as it talks about blood pressure, coronary artery disease, heart disease, etc... and what we as men should be doing in the form of tests and monitoring our own situtations. I am age 41 and feel fortuante that I remained active between the ages of 20 and 40. However, my family has a history of heart problems so I am attempting to watch everything closely including my diet and exercise to hopefully lessen my chances of what others in my family encountered. It may work, it may not, but at least I am aware.

http://www.topica.com/lists/labmembers/read/message.html?mid=804896821&sort=t&start=1907

BB

Originally posted by Andy Dreisch
Yeah, I hoping I don't fall into that trap. Another benefit of commuting for commuting's sake (rather than commuting in order to train for something else, like a triathlon) is that the routine of it makes monitoring heart rates and now pulse rates almost superfluous. You're in it to get to work and back, not from a training perspective.

Yup, exactly. Since I approach biking from a purely utilitarian perspective, I'm always a bit baffled when I see the pages of heart monitors in the cycling catalogs. If I'm working hard, I'll know it without having to look at a machine! So luckily this measuring of my pulse has been just a curiousity, a "let's see where I'm at" rather than a "let's see where I need to go and what I need to do". I never check while I'm riding, or check my recovery rate or any of that stuff. It was funny reading John E's post, because boring meetings are probably the place I happen to check it most often...I guess it's just one thing you can do to keep yourself entertained while looking like you're not doing anything!

Originally posted by John E
On several occasions during business meetings, I have clocked my resting pulse at just under 45 BPM. I would like to claim that this is a sign of fitness, but I suppose it could have been attributable to boredom.


Too funny. I did this the other day, in the middle of reading a brief, and found a hr in the 40s.

Hey, Chewa, I'm a platelet donor too. Although I've got a common blood type (A+), I'm negative for some antibody and they keep calling me for low-immunity recipients. I like to tell people I do this for humanitarian reasons, but really I just like to watch DVDs and eat free cookies. :)

Originally posted by BruceBrown We've all heard the stories of "in shape" athletes, runners, etc... that dropped dead of a heart attack or a stroke at a young age. - Jim Fixx and Ed Burke dropped dead last year of a massive heart attack on a ride in Colorado at age 53. Interesting that both men had become sedentary and overweight following their college age years, then returned to their respective sports to get back into shape and became well known for their work and writings.

In the case of Ed, this linked post below is worth a read

http://www.topica.com/lists/labmembers/read/message.html?mid=804896821&sort=t&start=1907

BB

Good link! I've wondered about those deaths.

For myself, I was active as a kid, stopped at 18, and started back up (at cycling) at 24 and 19 years later I hope I've maintained my heart well.

When I had my vasectomy and later, arthroscopy, in the pre-op check and later, in the recovery room, nurses gathered at my heart monitor. Low 40's resting rate was rare for them to see. :)

Where do you find all these images?

By accident, flipping about the web.

I like animated gifs, and that one was from:

http://www.uselessgraphics.com/

under body parts.

I wish I knew where things were more often instead of stumbling into them by accident!

Originally posted by BruceBrown
We've all heard the stories of "in shape" athletes, runners, etc... that dropped dead of a heart attack or a stroke at a young age. Most notable in the running and cycling world - Jim Fixx (known for his running books) had clogged arteries with cholesterol which led to an "in shape" athlete's death. And Ed Burke (known for his physiology and technology work in the cycling world) dropped dead last year of a massive heart attack on a ride in Colorado at age 53. Interesting that both men had become sedentary and overweight following their college age years, then returned to their respective sports to get back into shape and became well known for their work and writings.

In the case of Ed, this linked post below

http://www.topica.com/lists/labmembers/read/message.html?mid=804896821&sort=t&start=1907

BB
Great post, Bruce. There are many factors contributing to heart disease and stroke, and those of us who discover the benefits exercise should not think ourselves immune to cardiovascular disease.

But there's hope:

REVERSAL OF ARTERIOSCLEROSIS
Report #6769 4/2/96
If you have had a heart attack or have evidence of heart disease, start a program to prevent heart attacks as soon as possible. A recent study in the Annals of Internal Medicine shows a low-fat diet and cholesterol lowering drugs can dissolve fatty plaques that have already formed in arteries.

The authors used high-resolution ultrasonographic quantification to show that plaques can disappear from the carotid arteries in the neck when a person goes on a low-fat diet and takes 80 mg per day of the cholesterol-lowering drug, lovostatin. Over many years, plaques are laid down in your arteries from smoking,/ eating too much fat and food, not exercising, being overweight and having high blood pressure. Correcting these factors can cause the plaques to disappear. A heart attack occurs when a combination of fatty plaques and clots completely block the flow of blood to a certain part of the heart, causing that part of the heart muscle to die. If the victim lives, the damaged part of the heart muscle forms a scar and life goes on. If the person does not change his habits, plaques continue to accumulate in/ and block/ arteries to cause another heart attack. Bypass surgery and blowing up the arteries with a balloon have been shown to reduce a person's chances of getting a second heart attack for only a short time. However, if the person cuts back very significantly on fat and calories, exercises, avoids smoking and loses weight if overweight, her or she can dissolve the plaques that are already there and go on to live a normal lifespan.

I'm Dr. Gabe Mirkin on Fitness.

HN Hodis, WJ Mack, L Labree, RH Selzer, CR Liu, CH Liu, P Alaupovic, H Kwongfu, SP Azen. Reduction in carotid arterial wall thickness using lovastatin and dietary therapy - A randomized, controlled clinical trial. Annals of Internal Medicine 124: 6 (MAR 15 1996):548. Lipid-lowering therapy reverses the progression of early, preintrusive atherosclerosis of the carotid artery. Both cholesterol-rich and triglyceride-rich lipoproteins correlate with the progression of early, pre-intrusive atherosclerosis of the carotid artery. These findings, together with earlier reports of the effects of lovastatin therapy on the progression of atherosclerosis of the coronary arteries, indicate that carotid arterial far wall intima-media thickness is a useful end point for anti-atherosclerosis trials.

Let's hope that study is valid. I maintain a lean body weight, exercise, don't smoke and eat a very balanced, healthy diet in hopes that I can avoid some of the heart problems both of my parents have experienced (heart attacks in their early 60's).

BB

Originally posted by BruceBrown
Let's hope that study is valid.
Dr. Gabe Mirkin always backs up his comments with documented research.

According to what I've read, arterial plaque buildup, which is responsible for heart attacks and stroke (even in conditioned hearts and fit people) is a reversable condition.

I think some people who exercise think they are immune to heart problems and make the fatal mistake of not getting checked, or ignoring warning symptoms.

Also, life has no guarantees. Exercise has been shown to dramatically reduce the incidence of heart disease and stroke by
mitigating the contibuting factors, but exercise is not a guarantee
of avoiding a heart attack. I know of someone who suffered a heart attack while touring. He survived, but I often think if he had not been a cyclist, he might have suffered a fatal attack, and perhaps much earlier in life.