exercise

[asterroc]

as usual at my yearly checkup this past week my doc told me i should exercise more - or at all. she also pointed out that i could use my inhaler before exercise to prevent an asthma event (i wouldn't call them quite attacks for me). so i did so today, and then went for a 20-minute jog/walk.

omg, asthma-wise it was awesome! never had a single asthma-related thing. usually i start feeling wheezy when my heart rate gets around 140-145. today i got all the way up to 178 and never felt an asthma thing. however, i did feel horribly short of breath and dizzy and even a little nauseuous. it occurred to me to look up what's supposed to be a good exercise heart rate. i'm resting and recovring while doing so, heart rate at 132.

According to Wikipedia, my theoretical max is 192 bpm (by the 220-age method). My asthma usually acts up at 140bpm or 73% of my max, which is actually in a good zone for exercising. Today I got to 178 bpm or 93% of my max. Um, that's actually NOT all that good, that's in the "Red Line Zone" where they say you shouldn't be exercising w/o doc's approval. Bleh, no wonder I'm dizzy and my temperature's all off and my fingers are tingling and I had a bit of dry heaves. Whee.

i'm almost done lying down, getting back to feeling normal. 90bpm. (70bpm was my rest at the doc's) Hm, another method of calculating theoretical max says that mine should be 187bpm. that means my 178 bpm was at 95%. Scary.

Comments

[kadath.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's how you'll feel after working out too hard. Used to happen to me after the Air Force physical fitness tests, and I'd feel lousy for the rest of the day.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Thing is, I've only started trying to actually push myself in the past three years or so (since 2003), and the last time I did any significant exercise before that was in 2000. The pre-2k exercise was limited anyway, as I self-motivated in frisbee (and I don't have much motivation to push myself), and in karate it was more muscle-building than aerobic. And between 2000 and 2003 is also when I developed asthma, so I've got this steep learning curve about what effects are caused by asthma vs. actually pushing myself.

I'm probably over analyzing it, but I've gotta think about *something* when exercising, or else I get too bored to do it. Good chance I will anyway.

[l0stmyrel1g10n.livejournal.com]

er, i'm not an expert or anything but my gym teacher has been yelling at me recently about exceeding my target heartrate, and she says you should never just sit down and rest after exercise, you should keep walking to cool down. so um, maybe that would help with the nausea and such?

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I wasn't aware of what my target heartrate was before (it seems that 140+/-10 bpm is reasonable), so now that I know I'll be working to keep it there consistently rather than yo-yo-ing up and down during the walk/jog.

And my total walk/jog was probably around 20 minutes, and I basically alternated jogging w/ walking, and yes the last part was walking after the too high heartrate. The walking after is when I started feeling the nausea and lightheaded and such. As far as I can tell, just not getting my heartrate up that high will be the main thing that'll help me.

Oh, and I did forget to stretch before and after, so I expect some muscle soreness. I think "walking it off" is supposed to help with that (specifically helping eliminate the lactic acid buildup after exercise), but personally I find it doesn't matter if I walk or not, it's the stretching that makes a difference. So I'm gonna hurt. Oh well.