I’d originally set my max HR at 172. No matter how hard I pushed it wouldn’t go above that and I’d feel as you described…truly awful. But eventually it moved slowly up to 177. I’ve just looked at a 4 min strava segment where I got 2nd place holding 384 watts for the 4 mins. At 2 mins my HR hit 170, and then slowly moved up for the last 2 mins. Yes I did feel pretty grim. But perhaps I’ve somehow trained my mind to get used to higher heart rates so they don’t feel as bad.
Buy a arm or wrist strap HRM. Polar has them as well as wahoo or schosche rhythm plus. My chest strap doesn’t work well, but have great luck with wrist monitor
If you did not feel any sharp pain or so, this is most likely just a fluke. I haven’t had a heart attack, but I’m quite sure I knew if my heart rate really went above 200. (I don’t think I have seen mine reach 180, my max heart rate was 176 or 178 bpm.) Just think about it: can you tell the difference between 150 bpm and 175 bpm? Most certainly.
My Wahoo Tickr chest strap gives me erroneous readings exactly like that when the battery is lower. It’ll claim the battery is fine, but my heart rate gets stuck at ridiculously high values above 200 and won’t budge for a few seconds to a few minutes.
So I would change the battery of your heart strap and/or get a second one. Keep an eye on your heart rate. If two different sensors spike at the same time with similar values, then you need to get to a doctor asap.
Can you define a “spike”? Does it read 220 for 1 second? Or 45 seconds?
This is the spike…max was 225. As soon as I stopped it went down to what it was (174) within a few seconds. Then slowed down as I cooled down.
I have the same psvt. Had it for about 10 years now.
That does look very strange - weird that it ramps up as soon as you stop pedaling. I suppose it’s hard to determine if you had to end the ramp test because your heart was struggling or if stopping the ramp test caused something to happen to your HRM readings.
One experiment you could do is stop a ramp test early before you are too exhausted and see if you still get the same effect? I’m wondering if it could be some kind of ant/BLU interference due to being in erg mode and power match? But i have never seen anything like it before.
That’s basically what mine looks like except my ramp up and down is sharper. Mine jumps up quickly and then comes back down quickly the second I stop pedaling.
That looks very weird, but still inconclusive: on the one hand, it doesn’t look like a stuck heart rate sensor, at least when that happened to me, I got flat plateaux. But on the other, the readings went down equally quickly. Ultimately, both explanations are plausible, it could be that your sensor fed you faulty data that stopped when you stopped moving vigorously. Or it could be something wrong with your heart. Since you didn’t report any symptoms, I still tend towards a faulty sensor, though.
But if you are in doubt, just go to a cardiologist and have them check you out thoroughly. If there is any history of heart problems in your family, you can just use this as a pretext for getting a thorough checkup.
I actually ended it when I saw it go to 200, then it briefly spiked to 225 two seconds later, then quickly went down.
I’ve since bought a Polar H10 and redone the test today. It still spiked, but no where near as much. It went to 188, then levelled off, then went to 190. That was where I stopped as I physically couldn’t go on anymore and it dropped quickly.
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This result is more in line with what ramp test does…
Like I said before…
It would be extremely noticeable if your HR spikes from 180s to 220s…
like it will be very very uncomfortable.
That said, I am not a doctor, so if you keep seeing this behavior go see a doctor.
Well the first time my HR shot from 137bpm to 240bpm it wasn’t uncomfortable at all. It simply felt strange. I have diagnosed psvt. It doesn’t stop me from cycling.
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Interesting.
My wife recently (January of 2021) had a ablation procedure to deal with what i think was psvt.
My wife would definitely notice her HR jumping from 130 to 240…
But doctor said everyone deal with it differently and she is not an athlete… Maybe thats the difference?
I’m not saying I didn’t notice it. All I’m saying was that it wasn’t very, very uncomfortable as you put it.
Fair…
I guess in my specific case I was dealing with already high HR (close to 200) and probably the cumulative effects and going above the red line cause the dizziness and tingling sensations…
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I’ve never had dizziness or tingling. Guess I’m maybe one of the lucky unlucky ones hahaha
Mine is not related to a heart condition, but just a VERY hard effort… so maybe thats why I felt that way
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As it seems repeatable, I’d see if you can speak to a doc about it.
Just had a question though - did you stand up towards the end of the ramp test? Standing up would use more muscles, and so can lead to a higher HR.
The end of a 5k or 10k running race is (if you are pushing for real) a long ramp up of HR to your max, and you do stay within a few % of your max for minutes.
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As @Joelrivera can certainly also attest, if you finish a 5k race without thinking you’re going to die, you’re not trying hard enough.
A 5k race in summary:
First Km: This feels great
2nd km: Oops, maybe this isn’t so great after all
3rd km: I think I’m going to die
4th km: I know I’m going to die
5th km: I didn’t know death lasted that long.
After passing the line: Never again.
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