Does alcohol boost HR?
 

I'm on a business trip right now. For most part I don't care for them. I eat too much, drink too much, work too much, and don't sleep or exercise enough.

Today after dinner, I decided to hit the hotel health club where they had exercise bikes with all the electronic gadgetry and programmable routines. I've never ridden one of those things before in my life.

My basic impression of the gizmo I tried is that you can get a good workout, but they're not nearly adjustable enough and damn I miss my clipless pedals. On these things, default resistance on any routine needs to be boosted considerably, and they seem optimistic when reporting speed and calories burned. Cadence works properly.

What puzzled me was HR. On multiple workout routines I busted 190 and was holding 180+ for decent amounts of time. Normally even breaking 170 requires considerable effort and I have to kill myself to get past 180 for short bursts.

All I had was 2 glasses of IPA with dinner an hour or so before my workout. Could that explain the numbers I was seeing, or is the accuracy of these machines way off what you'd get with a regular HRM?

This cycle measures through the handlebars so there is no chest strap. It was clear that it was having trouble reading, but I was wondering if I really could have taken the HR that high? I was working as hard as I could during peak times.

not sure, but I was told it is very bad to work out after drinking; this could be why

ipa typically will increase hr 34% above baseline, tequila 66% and everclear 98%. Congrats to you for not falling off the bike.

no, alcohol is a depressant, it slows the system down. This is why people say not to combine alcohol and energy drinks, they are trying to do opposite things. But what do they know?

According to my non professional opinion and minimal physiological knowledge: although alcohol is a depressant it is also a diuretic. Therefore it will dehydrate you and make your heart work harder to pump blood making your heart rate go up.

190 sounds pretty high to me. Especially if it is not normal for you.

For over 20 years, I've maintained a policy of zero drinking before riding. Early experiments with even small amounts of alcohol resulted in cramping when riding. However, when you can quit riding anytime you like because you are on a stationary bike, there's no risk of getting stranded in the middle of nowhere.

I was having some cramping issues tonight which I've never had on a trainer before. Although I was drinking water while riding, I assumed this was due to slight dehydration. Tomorrow, I'll try the same workout before breakfast rather than after dinner and see if the results are different.

dunno the science behind it but...
after drinking a fair amount, my heartrate is definitely alot higher than RHR.

You drink isopropyl alcohol?

Alcohol is a vasodilator. Red face, warm feeling occurs because the blood vessels have enlarged. Heart needs to pump more to keep up. Particularly bad for those with arrythmias.

Yes, it speeds up your HR.

It definitely amps up the heart.
So much so that people have had to use Atenalol and other stuff
for a while while trying to get off it. If you go to a re-hab for alcohol
O.D., you get put on a librium drip and a heart moniter because
the risk of heart attack is very high when detoxing.
I would say stick to an opiate or combustible leafy substance if you're
worried about your heart :)

All things being equal, yes it does, but so does being an old fart. YMMV.

those machines that measure hr through your hands are not accurate

Yep. Two glasses of beer won't make that much of a difference. It's got to be inaccurate readings.

I have been on multiple machines with the hand heart rate and they are within one or two beats per minute compared to my HRM. I am sure there are bad ones, but I have not run into one that was off.

It boosts performance but only certain brands like Jack Daniels.

Alcohol doesn't increase heart rate, it is the fact that it causes you to start becoming dehydrated immediately that does. As soon as you "break the seal," you are losing fluid.

It is widely known that dehydration raises heart rate. I am not sure whether these effects occur immediately, I would think they would be sometime after imbibing.

Another non-medical opinion on the phenomenon....

I agree with the few others that pointed out that, although the direct effect of alchohol on your heart rate might be to lower it somewhat, its other effects (whether it be its diuretic properties, or the enlarging of your bloodvessels?) may ultimately cause an increase in your HR above what your average is.

I wouldn't put too much stock in our "educated" guesses though. Especially since there's other factors to consider. Such as the accuracy of those monitors vs. the one you normally use. I've heard/read differing accounts of how accurate those hand conact monitors can be; regardless, there's no knowing if the one you used was particularly accurate. Also, perhaps it could have been something you ate. If you ate foods higher in sodium than you would normally would have before exercise, that could have been a contributing factor.

So, I guess to answer your question as definitively as possible: "possibly".

Alky workouts
 

I'm not a doctor and my expertise in this area is anecdotal at best. My wifey is a very experienced heart nurse so a little bit rubbed off by accident while hanging out with her and the cardiothoracic surgeons. Workouts and alcohol are usually not good to mix. My personal experience is that it is better to workout before the IPA than after. That said, the HR monitor on those machines vary in accuracy and they do tend to be affected by the conductivity of the palms of your hands. But, when that happens it usually lowers the measured rate, not increases. 190 sounds very high to me for any age.

One Irish theory is this: arrythmias

As we age, our hearts can and will beat in irregular patterns when stressed sometimes. PVC's, partial ventricular contractions can fool the HR monitor an make it look like the hearbeat is higher. If you have this, you might feel a flutter in your chest on occasion. I cannot spell it but tachycardia is a type of arrythmia that causes the heart to misfire and those electrical contraction impulses are what the heart rate monitor is tracking. If you are prone to this it can and will show up as a higher than normal heart rate. There are many complex forms of this but some can be triggered by stress or "Dehydration" which as previously posted can come from the alcohol.

If you see this, try to cough HARD. That will often convert your heartbeat pattern back to a normal sinus rhythme. If that was what you experienced, then the cough might make the HR monitor measure drop back to a normal range for you. If it has no affect on the monitor then my little amateur theory was wrong. If it is the cause, it would be good to back off and rest then get checked out.

Irish

Irish

Definitely quite a bit of food for thought in this thread. I went in for a 1 hr ride at 5am (workout room was surprisingly busy) to see if I could duplicate the process. The booze/dehydration and some pent up energy must have combined for most of the effect I saw last night.

I simply couldn't maintain the same cadences I was last night at high resistance. However, I still got a good workout and my HR was at normal levels. BTW, next time I travel, I'm not bringing gym shorts. I am not prone to chaffing, but it's definitely an issue on these stationary bikes.