This is my story. I've always had a good health and exercise. Since we had kids, it became good to train in the basement. After completing p90x and then i'm on my first week of the second stage of insanity. EVERYTHING is great! I'm having crazy results. I'm 30 years old and my heart is pumping at about 170~175 on peak exercise. Sometimes I see 180, but very rarely, which I always back out of it. I give my everything. So Monday, it was my FIT test and the MAX cardio. Did my fit test, was ok. Didn't feel 100% and I saw some drops where I was better 2 weeks ago. I pop the MAX cardio in and start it. I had to take several breaks from it. I found it was really hard. At one point, I have 182 on the heart beat. I backed out and decided to just leave the dvd alone for a minute, since I was feeling very weird. Went upstairs and I started to feel dizzy. I lay down, drink some water ... I had to go outside take a walk. I thought I was dying for some reason. After about 1 hour, I was feeling the same way so I went to the hospital (which is 2 min walk from my place, lucky me!) I could even walk there, My legs were numb and I was scared for some reason. I had to actually ask someone on the street to take me to the emergency. So they took my blood sugar levels, blood pressure and a heart cardiogram ... and told me to go sitdown. I was still feeling very weak and started shaking. Each time I was thinking about it, it made it worst. After 5 hours wait time, I saw some doctors. Did some blood tests and they concluded that I had a ... panic attack. hummm, really? I'm starting to believe it was one, each time I think of doing insanity, I just get scared and associate that feeling I had with it. And I going insane?
did a test this morning. Did some high knees and as soon as I felt my heart rate go up, I started feeling nevous and my heart beat got faster and faster. I felt very agitated, calm myself down and it passed in about 2 minutes. What is wrong? I don't feel tired walking around or anything. It's just as soon as my heart rate shoots up.
First of all you need to visit your regular doctor. Emergency room diagnosis is probably not the best evaluation. If your normal doc says everything looks okay try the following. Take a week or 2 off. Not sure if you went straight from P90 to Insanity but I took 3 weeks from P90 classic to P90 lean. Gives the muscles a nice rest period. Look at the whole day that you had the spell. Did you get enough sleep, were you stressed out, have enough to eat etc. Are you taking any preworkout supplements? I am not a fan of caffiene before a workout my heart rate gets high enough and if i drink it right before a workout my rate always seems higher. Sounds like you are getting freaked out when your rate starts to climb. Try doing something else like running to get your rate up again to help lessen your fears. Worrying about it just pushes your rate higher. Hope this helps. *note i am not a doctor or in the medical field, just a gym rat and P90x classic and lean grad.
Never had problems following P90x. Insanity is tuff but you have to work throught it. I just feel very "weak" that doctors said it was a panic or anxiety attacks. Never heard of it, would make much more sense if he said there was something wrong with my heart or something else ... thanks for taking the time to respond
I would still go see your regular doc. Sounds like your worried that it's your heart. That could lead to having an anxiety attack as your heart rate climbs. I think visiting your reg doctor and getting a second opinion would help. No problem and good luck! Don't stress about it it will just make it worse. I am going to have to give insanity a try next I hear it is pretty tough.
don't push yourself over the limit. It looks like 170 is your "red line", and I would not be pushing it any harder... Good luck!
Estimated max HR is 220 minus your age. The Karvonen formula is better in that it takes an individual aproach. 220 -(Age)- (0.67 x (Age)=x x- (Resting HR)=X1 X1(% work load you want to be @)=Target HR 65%-85% is a good target for fat loss The syncope could be caused by a drop in blood sugar...look into eating a complex carb i.e. oatmeal,rice, or sweet potato with a lean protein i.e. chicken, fish, turkey breast about an hour before. The carbs will be burned up 1st b/c carbs are stored as glycogen (sugar) which is the easiest form of fuel to turn to energy...if the workout goes long enough you will have the protein to use as fuel. This may be a little jumpy but see how it works and keep us posted
Rennes, I had the unfortunate experience with this as I developed panic attacks from stress @ Performance Art the shop I used to run. A panic attack feels exactly like you are going to DIE, as your mind tricks you into this and the symptoms are what you described. I had one driving home one night I could barely drive to the hospital and when I got there they gave me Adavan and it calmed right down, you need to avoid the following things. Aspartmene, coffee, ephedrine, sodas with caffeine, dark chocolate, splenda, and wines with sulfates and tannins. That heart rate you reached is a max, and if you do not build up to it your body is going into "fight or flight" and your in a panicked state. When I was fighting(Muay thai/jitsu) in training sometimes I would be anerobic and feel like crap and it took a build up of my cardio slowly to feel better. Hope you stick with the program(P90X) and feel better.
I do yes, I used to drink some Monster energy drinks as well ... I know it's bad :\ They tested the blood sugars are they were fine. Could've been. I got some Ativan prescribed, probably the same thing as you mention. I have reached several times 180 and it was fine. Only this time, I guess the body didn't take it as well. I think what you said would work the best, work back the cardio slow. I had completed p90x, I'm on insanity right now. I plan to do p90x after since it's a nice break from insanity ha! Thanks guys!
Bob, followed your advise. It worked. I was able to complete my whole workout and felt great! I saw 186 HR today and didn`t feel a thing. As stupid as it sounds, I never thought of taking it slow. I`ve always been in the rush, trying to get sweating fast and non-stop. Cheers! Sincerly, Marc
Glad you feel better, 180 is a max heart rate and unless you are doing world class competition at something you need to take care. Conditioning was always hard for me as a heavyweight(250lbs plus) although I had to do it, the Insanity program looks like no joke at all as bodyweight movements with no rest period WILL kick your butt. When I travel and the gym is hurting at the Hotel/motel I will just do 6count push up to failure, now I do not do great but not bad at this because at my best(early thirties) I could do 35-50 without stopping with good form. Pull -ups, hindu squats, afforementioned 6 count push ups, with good form will get you in great condition and heavy bag work also wrestlers movement(bearcrawls) will blast glutes/shoulders and have you breathing really hard in 15 seconds or less. Rennes I also take a natural product which works great for the panic attack stuff called "Seredyn and amoryn" I take these two different pills every morning with great results which are plant extract based and maybe it will work for you as well.
Welcome to the world of panic attacks. I suffered from severe ones for a large part of my life and just recently started to control them. I used to get so bad I couldn't exercise for fear of having one. Even the thought of exercise caused one. Weakness, high heart rate, dizzyness, feel like your dying although you're not, ect. ect. The only true way through it is mentally. It takes a long time and nothing but time can help. Reading on forums and such for panic attacks helps cuz it shows how much worse other people have it. Best of luck, you will get through it.
