Good for the Heart - Biking Uphill

Last summer I was busy working my "real" job as well as trying to get my internet business off the ground.  (It's still pretty much on the ground but I'm still trying to get it going.)  So I didn't have a lot of time for exercise.  I typically play tennis, do a little hiking, and generally get outside in the summer.  But I just didn't have the time in the summer of 2008.

I forced myself to carve out the extra 45 minutes to an hour that it added to my round trip commute and started biking to work.  The commute to work was about 35 minutes.  The commute home was about 45 minutes.  The difference in times for coming and going was 1 very long, very steep hill.

In the middle of my commute is a very large hill.  I get to climb it going both to and from work.  Since this was the only exercise I was doing it took me about 2 weeks of (at about 3 times a week) before I could climb that hill without wanting to collapse at the top.

An interesting thing happened...

I give blood.  My previous employer did blood drives every 2 months onsite and so I gave every 2 months.  My current employer only does it twice a year so I try to make it in a couple of times a year in between.  During these blood donations they always check a few vitals before taking your blood.  They want to make sure you are healthy first.

At the end of the summer my resting heart rate during one of these blood donations was 42 beats per minute.  My previous best was in the low 50s and I'd earned that resting pulse rate by playing basketball 3 days a week for 2 hours and doing Tae Kwon Do 2 days a week for an hour and a half for about 6 months.

The thought has occurred to me that this might have just been an anomaly.  However, I've tried, through breathing techniques, to lower my heart before a blood donation before.  Just to see how low I could get it.  I did not always try to force my pulse rate to be low and there was a difference - sometimes as much as 5 to 10 beats per minute.

My resting rate of 42 was achieved without trying to force it low and was at least 10 beats per minute lower than I'd ever been measured at before.  And I got there without any other exercise outside of the biking.

My unscientific but obvious conclusion...

My unscientific but obvious conclusion from this was that biking flat stretches didn't get my heart rate so low.  Certainly coasting downhill didn't do it either.  That only left the steep uphill climb I did twice a day as the culprit.

Just my 2 cents.