During today’s low to moderate effort rowing, heart rate ranged too widely and went too high.
There was no atrial fibrillation yesterday or last night until sometime after 1 a.m. I’d been sleeping very soundly until 12:45 a.m. when I was forced awake by a “call of nature.” After returning to bed I began to feel a bit warm and got out of bed again to adjust the thermostat so it would cool the house by a couple degrees toward what is supposed to be the ideal room temperature for sleeping, 65 degrees F.
It seems that my heart is not yet sufficiently “detrained” from all the hard rowing I used to do and if atrial fibrillation is going to start, it will be during times when it has to adapt from its fully resting slowest idling rate while sleeping to a bit faster when walking etc. That’s my theory anyway.
So AF started last night sometime after 12:45 a.m. – probably around 1:30 or 2:00. At any rate, I was wide awake from 12:45 until 04:00 and managed to get about 5 hours sleep before the alarm went off at 08:00.
Today’s workout sessions were all on the rowing machine. Two of them were online in the virtual company of three other people. The other three of the total of 5 sessions were offline.
Screenshot of data and graphs for the last of today’s 5 rowing sessions.
All data and graphs can be seen via this link to the online logbook. To see any session’s data & graph, click the corresponding “+” sign in the “Action” column for the particular session.
Today’s workout time was divided among ten sessions. The day started out with no atrial fibrillation and the first 7 workout sessions were with normal heart behavior. During the eighth session, atrial fibrillation started and it has continued from then until now as this is being written.
Atrial fibrillation comes and goes. I like it best when it goes.
Data and graphs can be seen for today’s sessions via this link to my online logbook. To see a session’s data & graphs click the corresponding “+” sign in the “Action” column for the particular session.
Screenshot showing summary list of today’s workouts.
Today’s main session was a 10K piece done at steady pace with the goal of averaging 2:33.2/500m. There were three other sessions also done today. Altogether, a total of fore four sessions today. Only the 10K is shown here but that and all session graphs and data are available via this link to my online logbook. They are the log entries with the date of the respective sessions. To see their data & graphs click the corresponding “+” sign in the “Action” column for the session you want to see.
Because I’ve been getting so many “impossibly low” heart rate graphs recently from the Garmin heart strap worn on the chest, I was thinking about discarding it. But I decided to first try and see how a different chest heart strap would work. So I used a Polar chest heart strap instead of the Garmin today.
The results from the reliable Polar heart strap were just as nutty as from the nutty Garmin heart strap. So maybe the Garmin heart strap isn’t nutty, after all. I hereby apologize to Garmin for that mistaken jump to a conclusion. Average heart rate for data logged with each of the 1,438 strokes of today’s 10K was 28.8059805285118 (to the nearest trillionth or so). . . . according to the average generated by the spreadsheet. Of course, some of the heart rate data logged for each stroke of the 10K was when my heart (according to the heart strap) was flat-lining at 0. I don’t think it was really zero because I don’t remember any out-of-body, feel-sort-of-dead moments during the 10K. So the weird heart rate displays from Garmin AND Polar heart straps must be due to a heart that is weird and/or nutty. I’ve been having atrial fibrillation today. Call it weird, nutty or whatever you like but you can’t call atrial fibrillation “normal”. Guess the Afib has the heart-strap algorithm flummoxed.
There were two heart straps worn today, as I’ve been doing for a while. The other one was the Scosche with its optical sensor. Usually, the Scoshe heart strap gives a sensible reading. But today, though the Scoshe heart strap never displayed “zero” heart rate, it did consistently display “impossibly” low heart rate, except right at the beginning of the 10K. At the very beginning of the 10K before I started rowing, the Scosche displayed a heart rate of 113 BPM. That was my resting heart rate with atrial fibrillation. But right after I started rowing, the Scosche acted the same as the chest heart strap and displayed heart rate that was about normal resting rate or even lower.
I’m not going to even pretend that I understand the why for the strange heart rate readings, except I’m fairly sure it has something to do with atrial fibrillation.
Finish screen view for today’s 10K rowing session.
Report for today’s 10K rowing session.
Graphs for today’s 10K rowing session.
Scosche heart strap data graphed for today’s 10K rowing session.
Before today’s main workout session I drank about three pints of water in the form of protein drinks and water to rinse the remnants of protein drinks out of the protein drink-shaker. There was also a pint or more of coffee. And some dry cereal with a bowlful of milk. Lots of water.
Oh yes, there was also about 8 ounces of water in a chia drink. A few rowing sessions before and after coffee and cereal. Then the protein drink and then a half marathon rowing. I must have made six nature calls during the half marathon in order to deal with the excess liquid. But that was okay because I was going for the distance, not speed.
There was on-and-off atrial fibrillation during the half marathon so don’t pay too much attention to the crazy heart rate graph that resulted from the confusing signals the heart strap had trouble sorting out.
Only screenshots for the half marathon will be posted here. That and all session graphs and data are available via this link to my online logbook. They will be the log entries with the date of the respective sessions. To see their data & graphs you click the corresponding “+” sign in the “Action” column for the session you want to see.
Finish screen view for today’s half marathon distance.
Though there was nothing posted yesterday there were eight sessions done on the 14th. They were all on the rowing machine. Today there were five sessions done and they were likewise all on the rowing machine. Their graphs and data are available at this link to my online logbook. They will be the log entries with the date of the day’s sessions you wish to look at. See their data & graphs by clicking the corresponding “+” signs in the “Action” column.
There was atrial fibrillation yesterday and there has been all day today. That was one reason why I only used the rowing machine: because I can log more meters in less time at a lower heart rate by rowing than by using the SkiErg. The SkiErg has not been abandoned – just omitted for a little while.
On Tuesday, February 11th, I did relatively little on the ergs and on Tuesday I also “went into hiding” from the blogosphere and didn’t post anything to this blog.
It didn’t help that there was atrial fibrillation all day yesterday. And all last night. And all day today.
But today I felt the urge to emerge, so here is a blog post.
Altogether there was 28,802 meters in the sessions done yesterday and today. Their graphs and data are available at this link to my online logbook. They will be the log entries with yesterday or today’s date. See their data & graphs by clicking the corresponding “+” signs in the “Action” column.
Today’s main workout session was a slow 10K done on the rowing machine, with many interruptions.
Finish screen view for today’s 10K rowing session.
Report for today’s 10K rowing session.
RowPro graphs for today’s 10K rowing session.
Since the Garmin chest strap supplied mostly a flat line for the RowPro heart rate graph, here is the heart rate graph from the other heart strap (A Scosche optical strap).
Today’s title relates to the “detraining” approach as a remedy for atrial fibrillation. AF was happening before, during and after today’s workouts so when it was time to do the customary daily 10K rowing, it was done even more gently today.
Altogether there were nine workout sessions today. They were all short except for the 10,000 meter rowing session which was a bit longer than any of the others. You can see the graphs and data for any of them by visiting this link to my online logbook, looking for log entries that were made on today’s date and clicking their corresponding “+” signs in the Action column.
This particular Garmin heart strap only works well if heart rate is normal and chest is sweaty.
Today’s main workout was 30 minutes. Overall time and distance was less than yesterday but was more than 10K meters.
There was interference from atrial fibrillation and though I tried salty paste on the Garmin heart strap again today, like yesterday, it didn’t seem to make any difference. Atrial fibrillation overrode any benefit from better electrical conduction between chest and strap.
In addition to the 30 minute piece there were three other sessions. They were shorter, on both SkiErg and rowing machine. You can see the graphs and data for those by visiting this link to my online logbook, looking for log entries that were made on today’s date and clicking their corresponding “+” signs in the Action column.
Finish screen view for today’s 30 minute rowing session.
Report for today’s 30 minute rowing session.
RowPro graphs for today’s 30 minute rowing session. This HR graph used data from Garmin chest strap.
Heart rate graph using data from Scosche optical heart strap.
The sun was its normal color this afternoon but it felt so cold outside when I got a daily ration of a few minutes direct sunlight, that I wouldn’t have been surprised if it had been blue.
Today’s main workout was 10,000 meters indoor rowing at a steady pace whose average target was 2:33.4/500 meters. It was the seventh of seven sessions today.
In addition to the rowing 10K there were six other sessions. They were shorter ones, on both SkiErg and rowing machine, which served as warmup before the 10K. You can see the graphs and data for any of those by visiting this link to my online logbook, looking for log entries that were made on today’s date and clicking their corresponding “+” signs in the Action column.
But after all those warmups I was still cold with not an iota of perceived perspiration and that may be why it took quite a while for the Garmin heartstrap on the chest to start showing a signal. That particular heart strap seems to need to be very wet and perhaps a bit salty wet. Plain water doesn’t seem to do the trick. When it did start showing a heart rate signal, it was way too low. So the heart rate graph from the other heart strap, a Scoshe heart strap on the arm, will be shown also. It seemed to be realistically accurate.
I don’t know if I’ll be doing any rowing tomorrow… it depends on how I feel after having a root canal done by my favorite dentist.
Regarding the lately very popular topic of atrial fibrillation: It continued all last night and this morning but stopped in the afternoon, a little while after the 16 minutes of cold sunbathing.
Finish screen for today’s 10,000 meter rowing session.
Report for today’s 10,000 meter rowing session.
RowPro graphs for today’s 10,000 meter rowing session.
Scoshe heart rate graph for today’s 10,000 meter rowing session.
Today’s main workout was 10,000 meters rowing at a steady pace averaging 2:33.5/500 meters. Heart rate was haywire during the session. The heart rate reading from the Garmin heart strap worn on the chest was erratic, not always displayed at all and was too low when it was being displayed. You can see its graph on the “RowPro Split and Stroke Charts,” below. The other heart strap gave a continuous reading which seemed to accurately display the much too high heart rate being experienced during today’s bout of atrial fibrillation. The other strap was a Scosche heart strap, worn on the arm. It’s graph is below also. It is the one that is red with a black background.
In addition to the rowing 10K there were six other sessions. They were shorter sessions on the SkiErg and rowing machine which served as warmup before the 10K. You can see the graphs and data for any of those by visiting this link to my online logbook, looking for log entries that were made on today’s date and clicking their corresponding “+” signs in the Action column.
Finish screen view for today’s 10K rowing.
RowPro report for today’s 10K rowing.
RowPro graphs for today’s 10K rowing.
Heart rate graph for today’s 10K rowing, using data from the optical heart strap worn on the arm.
