Heart Attack Support Group
Heart attack is a serious, sudden heart condition usually characterized by varying degrees of chest pain or discomfort, weakness, sweating, nausea, vomiting, and arrhythmias, sometimes causing loss of consciousness. It occurs when the blood supply to a part of the heart is interrupted, causing death and scarring of the local heart tissue.
Hi, I've only posted on here a couple of times, I spend most of my time on the anxiety/depression forum lately. I have been athlete since I was 5 and it is every bit of my life. So when I had a heart attack at 34 I was crushed. I was determined to get my normal life back. I have made a full recovery after and have participated in mt. bike races, off-road triathlons and even a marathon. I was just wondering. Is there anybody else out there who participates in endurance sports post HA. Would like to hear your story
Welcome to the Heart Attack support group. I don't do endurance sports (unless you count yoga . . . :-) ), but I think that's great that you do.
I do relate to the part of how shocking it can be to go from thinking of oneself as quite healthy to having a heart attack! And I'm sure it was all the more frustrating and shocking at the age of 34 as an athletic person.
What HAS it been like, doing endurance sports after a heart attack? Keep up the great recovery and fitness.
Welcome, Sue
Initially I was a little skeptical about getting back into it but my cardio told me I would be fine and encouraged me to exercise vigorously to see how I felt. Being the type of person I am, I actually looked up another cardio, a "sports" cardio that had worked with Olympic athletes and heart patients. And he actually put me through a series of stress test and then prescribed areas of heart rate zones/ training that should be fine. I continued to see both over the next year as I steadily increased my intensity and endurance while monitoring my heart rate with a heart rate monitor. When I finally mustered up enough courage I signed up for a mt. bike race. My sports cardio did tell me I should change my mindset from wanting to compete to having fun for obvious stress reasons. That only worked for a short while:) Since then I have done numerous events of all types, I've competed competitively without any physical hiccups.
The only setback has been that I let my mind have an occasional wavering mental thought of something bad. And this is where I'm at today, Physically capable but mentally back sliding a bit because of other stressors in my life. And since I know athletics and life are every bit mental as they are physical, I know I have to have the same tenacity of training my mind as I do training my body.
The goal now is to just get out and enjoy myself and catch a good endorphine high, even if I can't cover the miles that I used to. The challenge now is to shake myself loose to go do it. I know I'll have a good time if I do, but the drive just isn't there. Part of that is depression rearing its ugly head.
It sounds like you've recovered physically and you are wrestling with the emotional side of it. Keep doing what you're doing. The only advice I can offer is to examine your expectations of yourself to see if it's time for some recalibration.
Welcome i cant tell you much i dont do those kind of sports i used to enjoy playing football and hockey.Now i do 1 hr cardio and 1 hour weight lifting everyday
john
Welcome to this great support group. Sorry you had to get initiated at such a young age. I too have always been athletic in my 50 yrs being above average in just about all of the sports that I have participated in.
The shock of such an event in your life can be lingering if you let it. Life is full of near death experiences. You have to put it in its proper perspective and move on.
Post MI I began the extreme p90x workout program in June of "10" and finished in Sept. It was extremely difficult in the beginning but I made great gains by the end. I started this program immediately after completing cardio rehab. My cardio informed me that all was good and to keep exercising but I was skeptical like everyone is after such an event.
After completing my first round of p90x in Sept I began training in martial arts again and for the new year on Jan 1st I began my second round of p90x. It is extremely difficult but I'm determined to complete it.
It is recomended to wear a heart monitor watch during this work out and I work at my own pace.
We have to challenge ourselves as survivors to some sort of exercise daily. Initally we begin not able to walk across the room to making great strides in recovery.
everyone keep up the good work...
Unsu
It sounds like you went about your participation in endurance sports pretty carefully and with physician consultation, and that's good.
One of our friends here in this support group, Paul Johnson, who has a website, heartattackprofessor.com, told me about a book by Dr. Sears regarding an exercise program. The book reviews research about how our hearts and lungs do best when we push them through some intermittant challenge, rather than sustained moderate level exercise. I found the book helpful, and I use the principles in it when I work out. Here's the link to Paul's review of the book-
http://heartattackprofessor.com/dr-sears-pace-program.html
LDF1, you mentioned that you've been having trouble with wavering thoughts of something bad. Does this mean that sometimes when you're doing your sports, you start to think about the risk of having another heart attack, and it scares you and wrecks your focus? If so, do you have any guesses about why that's happening more lately? Also, if so, is there anything particular that helps you when that happens?
The Wavering thoughts stuff hits me like a "what if" or "should I still be doing this" even though I'm feeling fine but I usually ignore it and say "I'm fine " or "oh well, it's too late now":)
Why it's happening more lately? My guess is the anxiety symptoms remind me of heart attack symptoms. I guess like PTSD.
Post heart attack as you may know we start to evaluate our lives and make wrongs into right. Which is fine if we have total control but as you know we don't. And even though I try and let go my circumstances seem to pull me down. It's been a real mental battle the last year and a half but I believe I'm chipping away at it.