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Kettlebell Fun with heart rate tracking

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slnm

slnm

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I've completed almost four weeks of @aciampa's Serious Endurance program. It's a one-hand kettlebell swing program with 10 swings on the minute. The number of rounds (minutes) varies each session and the protocol has me swing four times a week. The program is five weeks long and Al has ok'd me doing a sixth week which I will do.

I bought a Polar H7 chest strap/sensor which has Bluetooth and I have been uploading my heart rate data to Polar's Flow site from my Android phone via their Polar Beat app. I can graph heart rate data on their website and download it for custom processing.

I downloaded the second-by-second data for the fifteen sessions I've completed so far. I was interested to see improvements in the efficiency of my heart as measured by how long it takes my heart to get to different numbers of rates per minute going from 100 to 140. I wrote a little bit of code to grind up the data. Here's the processed data.

Screen_Shot_2016_01_03_at_10_07_03_PM.png


It's neat to see that today, for example, it took 34 min. and 34 sec. for my heart rate to get to 135. In previous sessions it took anywhere from 10+ minutes to 22+ minutes. So, my heart is greatly improving in efficiency.

Today my heart stayed below 120BPM for more than 13 minutes. That's pretty cool!

I should note that I hadn't been exercising very regularly for the last year or so although, before then, I was doing a fair amount of weight lifting and irregular cardio on my rowing machine.

I'm curious to see how much my max heart rate under stress and while resting will drop and over what period of time. So, I think I will continue to do endurance programs and track progress, perhaps alternating with some pure strength programs.

Anyway, I thought this little data grind project was great fun. If anyone can think of other metrics worth reporting I'll process the data some more. Another fun metric to report might be how much my heart drops between peaks.
 
I see some anomalies caused by my heart rate increasing two beats in one second. I'll have to make the code a bit smarter. But, bug aside, most of the numbers are right, the trend is great, and I'm greatly enjoying being a data junkie!
 
I'm no computer geek, but something's not right about this. I seriously doubt it took 33.5 minutes for your HR to reach 100 on the 23rd. There are some other not-believable outliers in the set too, and considering how far off the mean your 34:34 to get to 135 is, I'd say that's one of them.

Fun project, I just think it needs more polish. Perhaps putting the data into some sort of trend analysis software would be illuminating. Especially after a few months of such training.
 
I think the above might read more incredulous than I intended. This is a cool project and I hope it can be smoothed out a tad.
 
Bill, there's a glitch in my code. When it scans the data looking for the first time it reached 100 on 12/23 it misses the fact that there was a jump from 99 BPM one second to 101 BPM the next second and finds 100 BPM later in the data when I'm recovering from the workout and my heart rate is dropping. I'll fix the bad data when I finish the program and repost.
 
Bill Been said:
There are some other not-believable outliers in the set too, and considering how far off the mean your 34:34 to get to 135 is, I'd say that's one of them.
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Yes, that 34:34 to get to 135 yesterday is quite out of range compared to every other workout. I noticed that and that's what motivated me to do this little data project. Time and more data will tell if yesterday's data is really an outlier or the start of a new trend.

Glitchy data aside, which I will fix, I think there is an interesting conversation to have about how our hearts adapt to these kettlebell programs.
 
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Wow, very in-depth. Great stuff. I recently tried doing 20 sets of 5 w/ a weight I can't comfortably do 10 sets of 10 with. I managed to do 20 min of 1 arms swings and kept my HR below 143 (180-my age). Felt great afterwords. Feel even better the next day.
 
EricFrohardt said:
I recently tried doing 20 sets of 5 w/ a weight I can't comfortably do 10 sets of 10 with. I managed to do 20 min of 1 arms swings and kept my HR below 143 (180-my age). Felt great afterwords. Feel even better the next day.
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Comments like these warm my heart. :) Strong is good, and using a heavier weight and keeping the rep count at 5 is how I like to see just about anything done. If I can convince @aciampa of this, well, ... :)

-S-
 
Steve Freides said:
Comments like these warm my heart. :) Strong is good, and using a heavier weight and keeping the rep count at 5 is how I like to see just about anything done. If I can convince @aciampa of this, well, ... :)
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I am itching to try Lazy Endurance and its sets of 5 for my next program. I do have to say, though, that I am very grateful for discovering Serious Endurance with its sets of 10. As my first serious foray into kettlebell training in a long time, sets of 10 was perfect for me. I have been able to get a nice workout with my 20 kilo bell. With my 24 kilo bell I would not have been able to do sets of even five swings although I bet I will now be able to if I go to Lazy Endurance next.
 
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EricFrohardt said:
Wow, very in-depth. Great stuff. I recently tried doing 20 sets of 5 w/ a weight I can't comfortably do 10 sets of 10 with. I managed to do 20 min of 1 arms swings and kept my HR below 143 (180-my age). Felt great afterwords. Feel even better the next day.
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Hi Eric. I remember you had posted something about this here and also in the Facebook group. Could you say a little more or point me in the right direction? The target number for me is 146. I would rest until 140, do my swings, and rest again. I tended to bounce between 140-155 or so. Did you go above 143, or did you always stay below it? Thanks!
 
Not sure why I didn't see this thread several months ago...

Steve Freides said:
Comments like these warm my heart. :) Strong is good, and using a heavier weight and keeping the rep count at 5 is how I like to see just about anything done. If I can convince @aciampa of this, well, ... :)
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Well Steve, here we are 5 months later and I am immersed in repeats of 5 ;]

EricFrohardt said:
Wow, very in-depth. Great stuff. I recently tried doing 20 sets of 5 w/ a weight I can't comfortably do 10 sets of 10 with. I managed to do 20 min of 1 arms swings and kept my HR below 143 (180-my age). Felt great afterwords. Feel even better the next day.
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I have come to believe that HR is too varied between individuals to use a guide.

JamesO said:
I tended to bounce between 140-155 or so.
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...but if you are using it, this is probably pretty good.

slnm said:
Another fun metric to report might be how much my heart drops between peaks.
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...and this trend is even better.
 
@aciampa, first things first - you need to "like" Eric's post above and my follow-up; then maybe I'll talk to you about this.

:D;)

-S-
 
aciampa said:
...but if you are using it, this is probably pretty good.
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I thought it seemed appropriate. I had a light sweat, and I was breathing, but it still felt very comfortable and aerobic, like a comfortable bike ride or casual hike. Definitely not pushing it.
 
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