Heart rate vs altitude physiology data

[AlexPeterson]

Greetings,

I bought a running watch last week, one with a heart rate monitor. I've long been curious as to the effect of altitude on heart rate, so tonight I collected some data. I've left speed off from this chart, as somehow it managed to think I hit 700 mph once on the flight! Probably a roll or some other such maneuver.

I'm sure there are physiologists who know this stuff, but I thought it might be interesting to share real data, at least for one person.

In any case, there really wasn't more than perhaps a 5 beat/minute increase when flying level at 14,000'. It was a little higher in the beginning, during taxi out, I suspect due to the exertion needed to pull the plane out. During the flight, there are some interesting points though. If you follow the altitude line, as I was descending I did some 360 degree turns while pulling about 2.5 to 3 g's, and the small spike in heart rate can be seen, hitting 80 to 90 during the turns. I wondered also if there would be any increase during the final stages of landing, and perhaps a spike of about 10 can be seen as the altitude levels on touchdown. Would be fun to find a sporting crosswind and check again. Note the scale for heart rate is from 50 to 95.

[Danny7]

I'd be inclined to think the landing isn't a repeatable 10 heartrate increase consistently. Do you still record how many landings you've done in your logbook?

is the timeline a little off, it looks like the HR jumps before the 360s (if there were 3x 360s). those are the little jumps , right? maybe they follow the green spikes, it looks like there actually might have been 4? but then there isn' t a coresponding increase in HR afterward.

looks to me like the only easy to observe result is that HR increases slightly with altitude. (i could have told you that

[rvmills]

Alex,

I'm not a doctor or a physiologist, and I didn't stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night , so these are lay observations and comments.

HR does follow altitude somewhat closely, and I've seen that less scientifically with my pulse-ox when flying X-C's in the teens. Up there, with O2 my HR will stay in the 70s, sometimes a little lower, and without it'll start to climb as my O2 sats drop.

In your graph, if you draw a line across at 5,000', you can almost see a baseline range (if your throw out your initial "post push-out" rate)...call it 63-64 BPM. As you climb up and descend your HR goes up and then comes back down to that baseline in that same 5,000' (or so) range. I just thought that was interesting, as I've been taught in the past (not sure if it was Navy or another hi altitude effects class) that 5,000' is where night vision begins to deteriorate and the initial effects of lower O2 partial pressure are seen. Supp O2 is not yet needed, but 5K is what where the body starts to be impacted...or so the class taught. Just interesting to see your graph...might be a stretch (I wouldn't call it a scientific conclusion), and may not be repeatable, but its nontheless interesting. I would also guess that HR would go up under g, especially if you were doing any level of g straining maneuver (grunting, etc).

And you're obviously a fit guy from the HR's shown!

On the rate jump at landing...here's another Navy story. Supposedly they wired up some Naval Aviators during the Viet Nam era, and followed them from AOCS (boot camp) through flight training and into combat. The monitors went the wildest at two distinct times, and it wasn't during air combat or when dodging SAMs.

The brief goes that the needles jumped the most just before they pushed on the penetration for a night carrier landing (when you had time to think about it). The only other time that came close was when summoned to the Drill Instructor's office (which was never a good thing) and they were standing outside the door, just before "facing" into the doorway and "pounding the pine" (slap on the door jam three times and announce yourself "reporting as ordered").

I believe it, on both counts (AMHIK! ) So you may see the jumps in future tests, not when you're doing the gnarly x-wind landing, but actually right after you listen to AWOS/ATIS and hear its 90 off and blowin'. Once you're in the task, you get in the zone...IMHO its harder to anticipate and think about it before hand, than to actually do it!!

Kinda OT, but a related tale. Neat info in your graph though!!

Cheers,
Bob

[AlexPeterson]

Originally Posted by Danny7

I'd be inclined to think the landing isn't a repeatable 10 heartrate increase consistently. Do you still record how many landings you've done in your logbook?

is the timeline a little off, it looks like the HR jumps before the 360s (if there were 3x 360s). those are the little jumps , right? maybe they follow the green spikes, it looks like there actually might have been 4? but then there isn' t a coresponding increase in HR afterward.

looks to me like the only easy to observe result is that HR increases slightly with altitude. (i could have told you that

Danny, in the Garmin watch software that graphs this, one can click on a point on any of the lines, and it will give the time. All three "spikes" on the descent correlate exactly to where I did some 360's with g loads (I wrote the time down in each case for that exact purpose). I don't recall what I did at about the 35 minute mark at 14k', if anything. BTW, the little blips in the altitude on the way down were probably rolls or wingovers.

[Danny7]

35 min for the heart rate spike or 40 min for the altitude minispike like the three others on the descent?