September 2019 – Page 2 – Ethereal Rowing

Is Blander Grander?

Today is the fifth day in a row of refraining from adding any additional salt to anything I eat.

Today is day 5 of keeping my hands off the salt shaker or any other means of adding more salt to anything I eat. No matter how bland the flavor, I abstain from adding any more salt.

It has been another day without any fluttery, heart-throbby feelings or abnormally high heart rate. Could it be, that bland is grand where the heart is concerned? I continue to be amazed but am still keeping my skepticism at hand.

Today’s workouts started with a SkiErg session of 200 Calories and finished with a 10,000 meter rowing session. After the 10K another 1,000 meters was done as a warm down.

The heart graphs for rowing have some downward spikes and gaps to zero during the rowing but there was no accompanying fluttery feeling. Heart rate remained normal.

The heart strap signal transmitter and receiver are older technology on the rowing machine than on the SkiErg and I think the older technology is a bit more sensitive to tiny though very short deviations from perfect rhythm. One of the downward spikes happened as soon as I burped. (Burping usually causes heart rate to immediately slow by a few beats per minute, if I’m rowing at an easy pace.)

Happy rowing to you!

Four Days and Counting

Today is the 4th day in a row with no added salt.

The focus remains on heart behavior in absence of any customary added salt. Today is the fourth day of that experiment which began on September 15th and it is the fourth day in a row without Afib, otherwise known as atrial fibrillation or what I frequently call “heart strangeness.”

Today’s workout was 200 Calories on the SkiErg at a bit faster pace than yesterday, followed by 1,000 meters rowing.

Chart and data for today’s 200 C SkiErg session.

Finish screen for today’s 1,000 meter rowing session.

RowPro report for today’s 1,000 meter rowing session.

RowPro graphs for today’s 1,000 meter rowing session.

Concept 2 online logbook chart for today’s 1,000 meter rowing session.

Happy rowing to you!

Two Days and Counting

Today is the second day without salt. The above image is the same one displayed on the Sept 15th blog post because Sept 15th is the day I stopped adding additional salt to any food.

Today is the second day without any added salt. I’m holding tightly to skepticism regarding whether the abundant salt I’ve enjoyed adding to my food has been any significant factor in the too-frequent episodes of paroxysmal atrial fibrillation.

It has also been two days in a row without any all-night occurrences of the fluttery behavior, but far be it from me to rush to judge salt as bearing any guilt whatsoever in leading my heart astray.

Today’s workouts weren’t much. A SkiErg session of 200 Calories at an easy average pace of 2:31/500m. The last 100 Calories included five moderate 10 Calorie intervals that were each done at about 2:20/500m. Smooth going for the heart with no irregularities or abnormal heart rate. The rowing session that followed was a very tiny one due to time constraints of the day’s other scheduled activities. It was only 500 meters at a moderate pace. But unlike the 500 meter session of two days ago when heart rate was so wild that it wouldn’t even register for a heart graph, heart rate and rhythm was normal and painted a normal graph within normal range for the effort.

Chart and data for today’s SkiErg session.

Finish screen for today’s 500 meter rowing session.

RowPro report for today’s 500 meter rowing session

RowPro graph for today’s 500 meter rowing session

Happy rowing to you!

Flatline Heart Means Flat Food

Today’s heart strangeness influenced making a decision to avoid added salt for the remainder of today.

Today’s workouts were bothered again by heart irregularities. As a result, I decided to do only a SkiErg session of 200 Calories followed by a short rowing session to test whether heart rate would behave during rowing. It didn’t behave during rowing. Instead of acting like a proper heart, it flatlined. So I limited rowing to only that one brief, easy session of 500 meters.

The symptoms of heart strangeness today were the irregular, fluttery feeling and heart rate excessively high for the effort.

Something I’ve been wondering about is whether or not my fondness for salt is any part of the catalyst for heart irregularity. So after today’s minimalist workout, I decided to forego adding any salt to any of my food for the rest of the day.

The first and main workout today was 200 Calories on the SkiErg. Based on years of past experience wearing a heart strap, heart rate was much too high for the effort, by about 40% or more elevation in BPM. Though this HR graph does not show irregular heart beat, I could feel it feeling fluttery/abnormal during the workout.

The only rowing session today was a tiny, easy-pace 500 meters. Heart rate was too irregular to be displayed at any time, which results in recorded heart rate of zero.

Graphs for today’s 500 meter test session. The heart rate graph is flatlined because heart rate is logged as zero when it is too irregular for RowPro to display it.

Happy rowing to you!

A Working Out Vacation

This photo was found on a blog with the appropriate name Evidence of Things Unseen.

This morning I decided to take a one day vacation from the daily workout. It was a working vacation or perhaps it could be called a working out vacation. Instead of the recently usual 200C SkiErg and 10,000 meters rowing, I limited it to 250 Calories on the SkiErg and four very short, brief and easy rowing pieces. You can see how short, brief and easy they were from their screenshots below.

Strange as it may seem, there was no heart strangeness (aka Afib) today. Atrial fibrillation is evidence of something unseen in the region of the heart. The above photo seemed in tune with that thought and it was found on a website called Evidence of Things Unseen.

One of the valuable benefits from working out is sweating and what happens when you sweat. There was a tiny bit of sweat today but not enough to warrant taking a shower. So I acted as though I was allergic to water and skipped the shower.

But later in the day I worked outside where the temperature was about 90° Fahrenheit and there was as much sweating as if I’d rowed a respectably paced 10K. So I turned away from the water allergy and took a shower.

You are welcome, for all the exciting things which have been shared with you here.

A listing of today’s abbreviated workout session activities.

Today’s first activity was 250 Calories on the SkiErg, with almost 100% easy effort and virtually no extreme effort.

Today’s second activity was this 100 meter rowing piece.

Today’s 3rd activity was this 250 meter rowing piece.

Today’s 4th activity was this 500 meter rowing bit.

The last of today’s abbreviated workout tidbits was this 4 minute rowing piece.

Happy rowing to you!

Coffee Not The Problem

Today’s workouts were hampered by irregular heart rhythm and too-high heart rate. It started yesterday evening, persisted all night and through this morning’s workout. Yesterday there was no coffee consumed at all, so coffee wasn’t the problem.

During the SkiErg session heart rate was a bit irregular and 30 to 40 BPM too high for the effort level, from beginning to end. During the rowing session heart rate became more irregular and remained too high for the effort level.

After today’s workouts I had breakfast with coffee and the heart’s behavior returned to normal. Perhaps it needs coffee.

Concept 2 online logbook chart for today’s 10K rowing.

Happy rowing to you!

Slept Late Worked Out Late

Chart and some data for today’s SkiErg session.

Due to sleep issues involving sleep disruption between midnight and dawn, I got in some early morning reading today. Went back to bed after dawn and slept in very late. Today’s workout was very late also but the daily dosage was done.

Today’s first workout was 200 Calories on the SkiErg. That was followed by a 100 meters easy test row. The 100 meter rowing session didn’t appear in RowPro’s online logbook so I did another short test row of 500 meters. The second test row appeared in RowPro’s online logbook and it brought the 100 meter results with it. So I uploaded both of those to Concept 2 and then set up a 10,000 meter rowing session.

The 10K rowing session was interrupted after a little over 4,000 meters so I set up another rowing session which made up the balance of the 10K for today.

Finish screen for the 4148 meters rowing which was the most enjoyable part of today’s workouts.

RowPro report for the 4148 meters rowing

Report for the balance of today’s 10K rowing.

Graphs for the balance of today’s 10K rowing.

Happy rowing to you!

Daily Dose Earlier Than Yesterday

Today’s awakening was after only 5 hours 35 minutes sleep. But that was okay because I’d been sleeping a bit too much and this balances things out.

The first of two workouts was on the SkiErg targeting 200 Calories. The second was on the rowing machine targeting 10,000 meters.

The graphs tell the main story for today’s workouts. Near the end of the SkiErg session, heart transitioned from regular and normal rate to irregular and a bit too high. It remained a bit irregular and a bit too high throughout the rowing session, but not problematically so.