Today’s main workout session was a 2K time trial on the SkiErg. There was also a 30 minute rowing session today which was quite a bit longer, but the rowing session didn’t achieve the spectacular heart rate of the short 2K on the SkiErg.
I was too busy during the SkiErg 2K exercising “mindfulness” by focusing on the pace and the details of the level of pain, to notice heart rate. Also…. one big difference in personal perspective when using the SkiErg, compared to the rowing machine, is on the rowing machine, the person’s head is constantly in the same horizontal plane with respect to the monitor. But when a person is working hard on the SkiErg, the body is doing a series of alternating squatting and standing with each stroke in order to get maximum effort with each stroke. So its not as easy/natural to keep the monitor display in view because it is seeming to move up and down, in relation to the person’s head and its harder to focus on the monitor.
Afterwards when looking at the results, I noticed that heart rate had spiked surprisingly high during the last 500 meters of the SkiErg 2K and topped out at a whopping 201 BPM. It stayed at 201 for several consecutive strokes. I double-checked, by downloading all the data in CSV format for examination in a spreadsheet.
Perhaps a better title for today’s blog post would be, “Heart frolics when not watched closely!” If heart rate had acted that way when I was using the rowing machine, I would have slowed the pace immediately and drastically. But I didn’t notice it, didn’t feel any different and kept on aiming for a target pace in the SkiErg 2K time trial of something faster than the “pace boat” skier. (The pace skier is something you can set up on the SkiErg monitor). I set the pace skier to a pace of 2:12.9 and did glance at it now and then, to make sure I was staying ahead of it.
But I was paying virtually no attention to heart rate, since I felt normal and the result was that the heart got to rev itself up and frolic a bit at 201 beats per minute.
Happy rowing to you!
Hi John, I had something similar happen to me twice this week on the Skierg. I recently back to the gym, been working out at home/outside and I was doing a moderate 25 min workout on the skierg after a run. My average heart rate was about 150 bpm. I was doing some intermittent sprinting (30sec) and noticed afterward that my heart rate, according to my Coros Pace 2, hit 210bpm for about a minute and was in the high 190’sa couple of other times. I was winded but didn’t really like I was over exerting myself. I am 51, doesn’t seem likely that my heart rate would get that high. I wondered today whether a fast pull on the cables is throwing off my heard monitor. I happen to have a physical tomorrow, so I’ll ask my doctor for her advice.
-Tom
Hi Tom, I’ll be interested in what, if anything, your doctor says about it. I’ve been to three cardiologists and none of those three know anything from personal involvement about heart rate and reaction when doing activities such as running, rowing hard, etc.
For about 26 years I did daily long, slow running. Sometimes as long as 3 hours in one session but usually around 60 minutes. Never competed in running events and followed Joe Henderson’s advice to either keep track of time or distance but never both, for the sake of keeping it as an enjoyable daily “positive addiction”.
Then I switched to rowing using the C2 machine. After I discovered that I could row surprisingly fast for placement high on the online rankings, I started competing and did a lot of that. I think it was the years of rowing in a competitive manner that were a big factor if not THE reason for me developing atrial fibrillation. To read more about THAT (connection between afib and excessive endurance training) read the book titled The Haywire Heart, which my wife discovered on Amazon and gave to me as a gift after I developed afib.
My theory as to why my heart now seems inclined to act up when using the SkiErg is because all the competitive hard rowing I did resulted in shaping my heart into a rower’s heart.
I read about a study that compared the adaptability of the hearts of runners, cyclists and swimmers. It discovered that of those three, the hearts of runners are the most adaptable. As an aside, the person who wrote about that study mentioned that a separate study had been done on the hearts of rowers and discovered that they have the least adaptable, most muscular hearts.
Food for thought. Now, I’m trying to switch back to running and my rower’s heart is complaining a lot, like it does on the SkiErg. Might have something to do with the upright position of SkiErg and running compared to the sitting, halfway horizontal position of the rowing machine and what each of those demands of the heart.
Hi.
What exactly is an “adaptable” heart? Thanks