Comment by crikli | Hacker News Reader

Comment by crikli | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

> When training for mountaineering, I sometimes climb 5000+ feet in a day. Days like that tend to elevate my resting heart rate for up to a week afterwords.

I'm curious, what is your living elevation? When you climb 5000+ feet in a day are you traveling to a higher elevation? And if so, after the movement are you staying at that higher elevation?

I am not a doctor. But I ascend a minimum of 20K feet per month via the steepest trails I can find. This usually includes a movement of up to 7500 feet of gain in a few hours. I've never seen my resting HR affected and do not recall having seeing that happen to anyone doing the same work unless they lived at lower elevation and were visiting.

If you're coming to an elevation much higher than your living elevation, doing a movement, and then staying at a higher elevation, then your elevated RHR is most likely due to the body's response to the reduced partial pressure of oxygen.

But if you're doing a move and returning to your "home" elevation and your RHR stays up...again I'm not a doctor in any way but I'd really encourage you to talk to one.

> I've never seen my resting HR affected and do not recall having seeing that happen to anyone doing the same work unless they lived at lower elevation and were visiting.

Out of curiosity, how do you know your resting HR isn't just always higher?

Because I monitor my resting heart rate obsessively. :D

At 6800 feet (where I live) my resting HR is 55BPM +/- 3 and falling because I've begun to train hard coming off of a really bad injury + surgery. During recovery where I was unable to exercise it drifted up over the months to 62BPM. As I get back into my best condition it'll fall into the low 50s.

At sea level my resting HR will fall by 5-7 beats for a couple weeks and then drift back to stasis over 6ish weeks my body reduces its red blood cell count and all the other acclimatization stuff. I try to avoid this.

I watch it pretty closely because as nabla9's excellent commentary in this subthread highlights, a persistently elevated resting HR is a sign of overtraining, which being a type A obsessive nutjob I am pretty susceptible to. :)

I've also found that an elevated heart rate that can't be explained by overtraining, for me, is indication that I've got an incoming illness that I don't feel yet, usually a sinus infection.

Edit: expanded explanation

You're probably in much better shape than I am. For you, a 5000 foot day is probably fairly routine. For me, it still takes some willpower. I'm sure I will adapt over time.

But yes, to answer your question, I train at sea level and climb between to 6000-10000 feet on weekends, and sometimes high camp.

If your RHR is elevated at high camp that's to be expected as that's part of the physiological response to reduced partial pressure of oxygen.

If your RHR is still elevated after your return to sea level...huh.

I live at 6800 feet now but like you used to live at low elevation. I'd come out, hike up Pikes Peak (6700 feet start, 14100 foot finish) and then come back down to sleep at 6000ish feet. RHR would be up maybe 10-15BPM until I went home to sea level, then it went back down to normal literally on the drive home.

So the response you're seeing, I mean what do I know I'm not a researcher, doctor or expert but I will say that seems odd.

Check out this 40 minute podcast on altitude physiology. Super dense with really actionable information on the body's responses: https://www.scienceofultra.com/podcasts/29

Reply on news.ycombinator.com