Supertraining

There's a lot of good questions associated with what looks like a simple 
question here.

Trained athletes certainly can exceed a "recommendation" on any parameter we 
like to set, as the individual pushes their own personal edges further 
out....so you cannot say with certainty what an individual "should" do based 
only on the general "guidelines".

I watched a show called "Sportscience" the other day and they showed an 
experiment where a young man volunteered to take a 50 mph tennis ball to his 
private parts to see what the body does, with regard to heart rate, related to 
the extreme pain of such a sharply defined "event".  He was a healthy young man 
of 24 years of age and although the experiment was somewhat unusual, decided to 
volunteer for the huge sum of $50.00.  (They did not check his sanity).

They put a heart monitor on him from the beginning of the set up, and his heart 
rate was in the normal range.  When they put a target in front of him to check 
the ranging and positioning of the expected shot to his goods, his heart rate 
was around 140 beats a minute.  Perhaps he was actually beginning to get a 
preview of the event he was actually standing there to take?

They took precautions, EMT standing by and all necessary preparations on the 
chance he had a problem.

When they did the actual tennis ball hit to his groin, his heart rate spiked 
hard to 182 and he did exhibit signs of cardiac distress.  The EMT monitored 
him, he dropped to the ground from pain and stayed there for a few minutes due 
to the heart stress, including pain to an arm and other classic symptoms.  He 
made a full recovery and the EMT awarded him an ice pack to sooth his wounded 
"pride"..

The point here is, they took a volunteer in good health, in prime of youth, and 
with 1 tennis ball, caused a cardiac spike that put him into a cardiac event at 
just 182 beats a minute.  This would suggest for this guy that his true max is 
180ish, right?  A sampling of one, and that's HIS personal max heart rate.

Were we to take someone with a trained heart to an extreme rate range say with 
a low resting rate well under 60 beats a minute and a tested max higher, it 
might take a lot more to put them into a spike to begin with.  Pain being 
something elite athletes are generally required to manage in training to a 
certain amount throughout your career, in redesigning your own body and 
striving for excellence, the expectation would be that such an experiment could 
have similar results, but with a very different "max heart rate" achieved by 
the same "event".

A maximum working heart rate, without cardiac event, is a variable item for 
everybody and the guidelines may be too low for some, and too aggressive for 
others.  I've always judged my efforts by "rate of perceived exertion" rather 
than a monitor, which can be faulty on gym equipment or not function properly 
in the presence of other electrical appliances.

I would expect that as a powerlifter, during the course of a maximum effort on 
the platform, and due to a tight belt or other strictures of the body (e.g. 
bench shirt or suit) I could easily be close to my own personal max heart rate 
for several seconds during an attempt.  I have to trust my body to shut down if 
the effort is "too much" regardless of what a heart rate monitor would read at 
that moment... part of the work you do is by way of doing your sets, judging 
your rest needs properly, and if you have doubts about your conditioning, 
taking a pulse rate 2 minutes after you finish your set.

Some anecdotal comments about runners hitting "the wall" and coming through it 
would bear out it's partly training, and partly knowing your body and its 
reactions to pushing heart rate and endurance.

All this being said, formulas are only as good as the test subjects they are 
based on.  Ever wonder about that one?  Have someone try to figure your bodyfat 
percentage based on the sedentary people in your age group!

The Phantom
aka Linda Schaefer, CMT, CSCS, competing powerlifter
Denver, Colorado, USA

-------------- Original message -------------- 
From: "chaney21200" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
I had a client ask a strange question the other day. His question 
was "what is the max heart rate that a person can maintain and sustain 
will working cardio conditioning until the body will shut down." My 
educated guess was 220. But know that the body will voluntarily slow 
down with the fatigue and lactic acid overcoming the person. Has there 
been any studies or a definite answers for this type of performance.

Thank you for you time on reading my question.
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