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ventilation HR assimetry

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
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BlueIcarus

New-born freediver
Aug 1, 2003
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Hi..
have you guys checked your heart while ventilating? I did last night and noted that my HR
goes unsteady and up on inhale and goes down
on exhale... Am I forcing it too much? It's a 5:1:8:1
pattern with only belly breathing. In the inhale HR goes up to 80 at the beginning and then drops to around 60 as well as in the exhale.
When I do pranayama, i check my HR to be steady,
but basic pranayama doesn't ventilate my lungs!! It's too slow and "thin" to do so

As times goes by.. I realize I suck at ventilation!! Need a clinic NOW !!

PS: A clinic could be half replaced to any web pointers about ventilation. Anybody knows some? :p
 
Hi!

I'm pretty unworthy as a freediver, but I do know that asymmetric HR due to respiration is common to all people, and excersising of almost any kind will make the phenomenon a bit more obvious. The heart can just accommodate to the increased amount of O2.
A few years back (when I still was in a fairly good shape ;) ) I had my heart checked at the doctor, because I'd had some nasty feeling moments of arhythmia. There was nothing wrong with the heart and also the arhythmia is known to be common to all people, sometimes it goes totally unnoticed. The arhythmia can be related to the asymmetric HR. In my case the asymmetry with HR was quite strong esp. in the morning having slept a good night's sleep, and the arhythmia could actually be a result of the HR going 'out of phase'.
I wouldn't be too worried, but do wonder a bit that you haven't noticed it earlier. ;)

Please note that I'm no medical doctor and basically any oddities related to heart functionality should not be taken too lightly. This was just what was told to me.
 
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HR speeds up when you inhale, slows down when you exhale. THat's why the exhale part of a pranayama breathing pattern is longer
 
Hi N!ko, loopy.
I have always been diagnosed after HR studies with "early polarization", which is the condition I comment (a benign one), mostly observed in infants and people who do sports. In all ECG graphs, my HR starts at 60 bpm and in 1 minute, drops to 48, going up a bit on inhale, down a litle bit on exhale. So I'm not worried about the medical condition :))
My doubt is, having heard that one of ventilation purposes is to lower the HR, how can I do this if my HR goes up to 80bmp in a deep inhale???
Or is a 80bmp HR a good upper bound?
Or maybe ventilating too heavy?
I can do "square pranayama" 5:5:5:5 (counting HR) with no problem, but the lung volume involved is minimal....
So how's your HR when you ventilate???
 
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Ah, ok, BlueIcarus. I had the feeling I was missing the point... ;)

After sitting still for a while I did 5:1:8:1 pattern for a while and my heart seemed to settle to 6 beats on inhale and 7 or 8 beats on exhale on average (about 72 and 52 - 60 bpm respectively with a biggish margin for error). It doesn't sound like yours is that different. I'm just thinking if you're ventilating with a HR like that, then going to a dive it'll drop probably quite quickly and you're in a good area already. I'm guessing that you're using quite a lot of lung volume on that pattern, and the heart has more O2 to get into the system, so the rate stays little higher. OTOH you're probably doing the right thing in order to saturate your tissues with O2.

I'm sure you'll hear a good explanation, but that's the way I look at it.
 
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I thought that I read somewhere that Pipin's breath-up's raise his H.R. up to around 120bpm, or higher.

This was exactly opposite of what others were doing, in trying to lower their H.R., during breath-up.

Since he is now on this board, maybe he can comment.

Jon
 
I was told by someone who went to the performance clinic, the same thing loopy said, inhaling increases heart rate, exhaling decreases. But I didn’t understand that to be pranayama breathing. My understanding of Pranayma breathing is more of purging, like a little hyperventilation at the end of the breath-up to lower CO2. The largest part of the breath up is taking large quick, but not stressful breaths, using the diaphragm and then the chest, and then exhaling very slowly, using the lips to control the speed. I was told to let your body feel like it is sinking, actually if your in water your will be sinking some, because your losing displacement. Really relax. With every inhale your increasing your HR some, so do it quickly without stressing, and then get back to the slow exhale. So your heart rate is going up, then down and down, then a little up, but back to down and down. So the net effect is a lower heart rate along with fully oxygenizing the body.

Purging breaths at the end will increase the HR but the idea is to have it slowed down so much from the previous stage of the breathup that it’s still low, especially if you don’t to too many purges. Purge breaths are mainly a comfort thing. The less CO2 you have the less urge to breath you will have so contractions will start later. Too many purges will lower your O2, which is the main ultimate determining factor in your breathhold.

Just what I have been told,
Sammy
 
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If I take a single very deep breath while resting, my heart rate increases slightly while breathing in, and drops by about half when breathing out. I discovered this before I knew anything about freediving (I can't remember how!).

I will try to find out what happens to my heart rate when I hold my breath, both in and out of water.

naiad
 
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