Low Max Heart Rate

[boots2000]

I occasionally get weird breathing sensations as well. Particulary starting an effort. Doubly so if starting after a long descent.
I found 2 things that helped me.
1.) Breathing exercises. Both box type breathing and being more relaxed on the bike.
2.) Priming the pump a bit before effort. If I am going to do a threshold type effort or set. I often do a hard 30 sec- recover 1-2 min, a hard 20 sec- recover 30-60 seconds, then a hard 10 sec. This tends to open everything up a bit.

I have some questions and comments-
1.) Are you going slower as a result of your lower heartrate?
2.) I have a low heartrate and it has dropped as I have aged. But the biggest downward bump that I noticed was about 18 months ago- After my last Covid booster. My threshold heartrate dropped by about 8 beats. I rarely see a heartrate in the 140's anymore. I used to do threshold work in the 140's and could push a VO2 max type effort past 150. I can no longer due this.
3.) I also had lots of testing done. Recently had EKG, ECG, sonogram of heart and stress test. They could find no defects in my hearet or heartbeart. Only slow. Doc said they wouldn't do anything unless my heartrate got so low that I was not even seeing 100 during exercise.
4.) What to do. For me it was recalibrating. I found that I could do endurance rides with my heartrate 90-105 and I was still getting benefit. I am 60 years old. Have been doing endurance sports since age 15.

1. No, not according to Strava
2. That's what I was seeing for a few months, felt totally gassed where I could have sat happily at the beginning of the year.
3. I have mitral valve backflow and a bundle block, but that has been known for a few years.
4. I just accepted it and tried to adjust. I have seen it start to come back up after a bit more rest between rides. I'll be hitting the trainer a couple times a week and I'm picking back up on resistance training.

The thing that really got me going was the chest tightness I developed in September and I raised additional concerns to the cardio who then did an ekg / cac / holter which all came back negative for issues.

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