Anaerobic exercise, cardio and heart rate

panckage

Senior Member
Messages
777
Location
Vancouver, BC
One potential treatment for ME is to have a heart monitor and to keep your heart rate under a threshold (eg. 100 bpm). This would imply that having a a high heart rate is not good. Anaerobic exercise has been said to be safer for PWME but it has a higher bpm than cardio... Can someone please explain this apparent contradiction?

Apologies if my understanding is outdated
 

Gingergrrl

Senior Member
Messages
16,171
Why does anaerobic exercise have a higher bpm than cardio? I would have guessed it was the opposite? Also, I would assume it matters if you have POTS (vs. no POTS) and if the exercise is done lying flat (like Pilates) vs. standing?
 

panckage

Senior Member
Messages
777
Location
Vancouver, BC
Why does anaerobic exercise have a higher bpm than cardio? I would have guessed it was the opposite? Also, I would assume it matters if you have POTS (vs. no POTS) and if the exercise is done lying flat (like Pilates) vs. standing?
According to heart rate charts like this:
exercise-zone-heart-rates.png
 

Moof

Senior Member
Messages
778
Location
UK
@panckage, I think the confusion may lie in the terminology. The non-aerobic exercise that some folk say may be safer in ME (I've no idea whether or not this is true) is very short in duration, usually less than 60 seconds, and shouldn't spike your heart rate into the orange or red zone on the chart. An example might be lifting a heavy weight, such that the muscle group fails after very few reps.

Personally, I find that it depends what phase my ME is in. If I'm in an active relapse or a plateau (where I feel consistently unwell with no reals ups or downs), pretty much any effort will make me worse. If I'm at the top of my ME curve, I can tolerate being in the cardio zone for up to an hour once or twice a week without long term ill-effects, as long as I rest completely the following day, leave a couple more days before repeating it, and avoid activity if I feel even a tiny bit under the weather.
 

Seven7

Seven
Messages
3,446
Location
USA
You can go either way ( please see the Klimas videos on how to safely excercise).
If you do the aerobic, you have to understand your AT and every so often, lay down to reset the HR when you reach anaerobic. Supposedly this is done slowly to increase AT in a safely way. Now, this is the theory, I have been doing this for 12years and I hit a Platau that my AT deos not get better when I switch too early to anaerobic ( I get formal testing for AT)
2) you can try the anaerobic way, and then do short bouts, preferably laying down. Some PLp are very susccesfull w this method ( I am not one of those, when I do anaerobic lifting weights I relapse) I do better training the aerobic and following the protocol.
For what I have observed as a patient, some do better anaerobic, others increasing aerobic slowly
 

Remi

Senior Member
Messages
175
I thought it was about not exceeding the Anaerobic Threshold. Also to not lift heavy weights. Tried core strengthening exercises lying down, with some 50% of max strength pushing. My muscles hurt so much from it, I got pangs of pain in specific spots. Also crashed because it still adds up to exceed my energy envelope.
 
Back