Anyone else riding with Bradycardia? I’m curious to compare experiences. My RHR has always been 53-57. It’s about 47-49 when I’m asleep. When I was growing up, Medical techs would ask if I ran marathons when checking my BP because my pulse was so low. Meanwhile I struggled in PE in sports that required running. No juice. Started mountain biking in my 20s (40 years ago) and found that the first 6 miles/30 minutes were killer but then if I didn’t stop to rest I could maintain a pace for several hours. I can’t let my inner hydraulics lose pressure or I have to go through the pain cycle again. What I’m struggling with on Zwift is improving my power. My heart rate starts out so low, that I peak out at about 135 bpm. Some of this (a lot?) is maybe age related. Anyhow I’m just curious if anyone else out there has exercise issues related to bradycardia, naturally low heart rate.
I think your issue is more related to your BP, rather than HR. My RHR is 42-45 but my BP is normal (usually around 110/60) and I have enough energy to push my HR up to 190-200bpm. With low BP, I could see how you’d feel drained.
I’m 67 with a RHR during sleep of 38. Typical RHR is 41. My max hr is about 179. When adequately rested my hr climbs rather quickly when under load and comes down aprox 30 beats in about 90 secs after a lengthly interval pushing hr up into zone 4 (~160). Life long endurance runner/cyclist.
I do suffer from light headedness and can get dizzy when standing up too quickly but otherwise everything seems ok. I am concerned about my heart the older I get and insure I am properly rested between hard workouts. Use to use Whoop but aside from the expense found that I don’t really need the device to tell me when I need to recover. I monitor my chronic and acute training load daily using TP which helps predict fatigue.
Thanks for the replies. My situation is a bit different in that my low HR is congenital rather than the result of good conditioning. Actually I’m excited that I found Zwift because it’s so easy to get a good workout here at home. I’m curious to see how my bradycardia will be affected by improving my conditioning. Ride on!
disclaimer: I am not a doctor
you may wish to consult a GP before starting a new exercise programme if you have a pre-existing heart condition - if your heart rate is already naturally very low during sleep, doing regular exercise is going to result in that number dropping further and if it goes below 40bpm or so whilst resting/sleeping that may be cause for concern.
That’s a great point Ben. My GP knows, and you’ve given me a terrific benchmark to be aware of. I did not expect that my HR might fall further. I see her in 3 months and will discuss. Thanks.