[eric strt6]

ahh one of those lovely things that the department puts us old farts through just to make sure we don't keel over from a heart attack and die on their dime.

so much fun, good thing I'm a hairless beach ape or they would have shaved my chest to attach the 12 EKG leads

anyhow once they had me wired for sound it was time to step on the tread mill and get going. nice slow walk at first then they increase the treadmill speed and slope steepness. The first 20 minutes is a piece of cake as they only take you up to a fast race walk pace. Then they get evil and jump it up to a good running pace up hill which unfortunately didn't get my HR or BP up high enough so on to faster and steeper. They had me really striding and busting a sweat when the tech says we need to get you up into the 150-170 for a valid test so brace your self you will jump up in 5 seconds
oh damn than got me cranking. The Marque de Sade at the controls says excellent looking good now hold that for five minutes Oy that was brutal but at the end Grun Helga says Ya ve got a good vun...your heart looks great on the read outs. 8 hours later and my damn legs are still burnt but at least I know that all those lines on the mirror of my youth didn't toast my heart

 

[golgiaparatus]

Those are totally brutal. And the better shape you're in the harder it is. In college when I was a swimmer, I did one and they wanted me to get to 204 and maintain for about 1 min. It sucked getting there, and that 1 minute of hovering around 204 felt like an hour.

 

[Silver]

Those are totally brutal. And the better shape you're in the harder it is.

I never thought about that, but it makes sense. Comic Book Guy gets up from the couch for a new bag of Cheetos and a Mountain Dew, and his heart rate probably hits 130...

 

[Toshi]

Those are totally brutal. And the better shape you're in the harder it is. In college when I was a swimmer, I did one and they wanted me to get to 204 and maintain for about 1 min. It sucked getting there, and that 1 minute of hovering around 204 felt like an hour.

It's 220-age for the target, so it's not the "better shape" but rather the "being younger at the time" that nailed you.

 

[golgiaparatus]

It's 220-age for the target, so it's not the "better shape" but rather the "being younger at the time" that nailed you.

It wasn't the actual number that made it hard but the fact that it took so damn long to get there... I remember hovering in the 170s forever.

BTW I always wondered about that 220-age equation... Because I regularly exceed my calculated max by 10-15 beats without even noticing. I usually see it when I check my average and max after a race.

 

[splat]

I rather enjoyed my last one, good work out and got to watch how my Bp/Pulse/rep all reacted to the work out. and at the end cardiologist asked why is he here ?

but I must say where they shaved my chest for the EKG leads itched like hell for weeks !

 

[Nick]

I had a host of tests done a few months ago when my Doc through I might have a leaking valve or some nonsense. The stress test wasn't bad, but it was difficult to get my HR up to where they wanted it.

The real make-it-all-worth-it test was the echocardiogram. Enough that it was administered by a hot girl, but I also got to watch my heart working in real time on the display. Very cool. In the end there was nothing wrong with my heart. [/coolstory]

 

[stoney]

It wasn't the actual number that made it hard but the fact that it took so damn long to get there... I remember hovering in the 170s forever.

BTW I always wondered about that 220-age equation... Because I regularly exceed my calculated max by 10-15 beats without even noticing. I usually see it when I check my average and max after a race.

With Golgi on this. It's more than just age; it's fitness too. When I was still rowing in college my resting heart rate was in the mid-30's. Doing fitness and VO2 tests damn near killed me because getting to 'max' was so f*in hard. Hitting 200bpm when your resting is 38bpm is a long f*in way to go.

 

[Pesqueeb]

I had a host of tests done a few months ago when my Doc through I might have a leaking valve or some nonsense. The stress test wasn't bad, but it was difficult to get my HR up to where they wanted it.

The real make-it-all-worth-it test was the echocardiogram. Enough that it was administered by a hot girl, but I also got to watch my heart working in real time on the display. Very cool. In the end there was nothing wrong with my heart. [/coolstory]

The hot chick is there just to get your heart rate up.

Had one couple years back. Wasn't too long after my accident so I wasn't in real good shape, was having pretty bad chest pain and went to the ER. Did the EKG and they said they heard "something". Couple days later was the stress test. Wasn't too hard given my condition at the time, now, probably tougher.

 

[DirtyMike]

Last stress test I had was five years ago...... they stopped the test before I could ever reach the target they wanted. I was running like mad on that damned treadmill for what seemed like forever.......