Exercise/strain

[Caitlyn6]

Is exercise always good for the heart? What puts a strain on the heart? How does the heart distinguish between exercise and strain ? ❤️

[Kristin1812 Heart Star]

For me, my heart tells me! If I start off too quickly, or it’s hot, cold, humid, windy, particulates/pollution, carrying a weight, after a meal or caffeine, fast up a slope etc etc.........then I get angina. On the other hand, if I warm up and start slowly (and with none of the above), then I can exercise fairly hard, and even jog.

[Chappychap]

Kristin makes a really good point about warming up. One of the main things I took from the cardio rehab course was the need for a thorough, ten to fifteen minute warm up, and that's doubly so for people with heart condition. A warm up will dilate the arteries that feed your muscles, enabling them to supply the muscles with the maximum amount of oxygen rich blood as they start to work harder.

Cardio rehab even advised warming up even before heavier bouts of housework or gardening!

And after the exercise a five to ten minute cool down period of gently diminishing exertion is recommended to allow the arteries to return to normal. If they're too dilated you can find yourself feeling faint if you were to say sit down and then stand up quickly.

[Keenswimmer]

This is a really good question that I would like to know the answer to. I have HCM but experience no symptoms. The Cardiologist I was originally under advised me not to do any strenuous exercise, when I questioned what defined strenuous I was advised that medicine hadn’t advanced that far to be able to determine. My latest Cardiologist has advised me to keep my HR below 135 bpm when exercising. I monitor this with an Apple Watch series 4 that I find very useful. I am due to see my Cardiologist in the next few weeks following MRI scan, exercise ecg and 24 hour HR monitor and will ask a similar question again and let you know what they say.

[Caitlyn6 in reply to Keenswimmer]

That's great thanks. I too exercise moderately at the gym in the bike and HR goes to about 120. But if i try to jog it goes over 150, which I don't like.

[Keenswimmer]

That’s good. My mantra is always listen to what your body is telling you. I find Pilates is good; it builds core strength and my HR rarely goes over 120.

[Caitlyn6 in reply to Keenswimmer]

Yes I need to do that as I have MS and physio said it's excellent