Affair of the heart?

I did weights again today, or at least started to.  I had moved up to two sets for each exercise last week and wanted to continue it this week.  The weight has been going up, which was encouraging.  But an old evilness has crept back in and this time it made me scared.

I mentioned before about getting that weak, tired, ultra-exhausted feeling about halfway through a weight workout.  I started out fine and then about halfway through I could feel it coming on.  Its like a tired feeling but more like you want to just collapse on the floor, but with this twitchy nervous feeling inside.  Kind of like if you hadn’t eaten all day and your blood sugar was really low but your body is all jumpy.

Its not exhausted like after a race, or when you are up late and sleepy.  After a race I want to collapse but this doesn’t feel like that.
I used to think it was sugar levels.  I found in the past if I totally stuffed (like Thanksgiving stuffed) myself before doing weights, I would make it through fine.  Today I forgot about that because last week was no problem.  But I’m concerned that the food wasn’t really helping.

I checked my heart rate today and it was about 140 after I started feeling it, and it slowly dropped to 120 by the time I decided to call it quits and head to the locker room.  I grabbed a Clif Bar in there to see if it might help but it didn’t.  I went home, took two aspirin and collapsed in bed.  I woke up about 3 hours later and felt “normal” again.

My fear is that it is heart related.  I remember that article about the guy who felt weak and exhausted during a bike workout and went to find out that his heart had a plugged artery.  He was about my age.  I worry that there is something wrong that only shows up under extreme effort.

I have never had that feeling running, ever.  My heart rate has been up in the 180’s on workouts in the summer in the heat and I never had that feeling.  I only get it lifting weights, and if I double or triple the sets (yeah, I used to do triple sets twice a week).  Thinking about it now, I remember once in grad school (15 years ago?), my car ran out of gas as I was heading up a hill, and I jumped out to push it up as it was still moving (95F outside) hoping to hold the momentum, and a guy stopped to push with me.  We made it over the top and I jumped in and coasted down the other side of the hill into the gas station at the bottom.  As I stood pumping the gas, I got that same weak, shaky feeling as though I was going to die.  I went inside and got some kind of slushy drink thing and sat drinking it for about an hour until I felt better.

When the feeling comes on, I don’t get sweats or chills, my complexion isn’t pale, my hands don’t shake (although I feel shaky inside), I have no pain (chest or otherwise), my breathing is normal and easy, my vision is normal.  Its just extreme exhaustion.

So, I’m worried.  I’m worried there’s like a partially blocked artery or something and it closes partially when I do extreme extended exertion, and I’m afraid one day it will collapse completely.  I don’t know why it wouldn’t show itself when I run races where I am clearly pouring every bit of effort into it and pushing my heart to its absolute maximum.  I know there’s nothing left in the tank at the end of those races.  Or am I simply reaching the limit of my pulmonary system in a race and not the limit of my cardiac system?
Even when I think about that giant hill in Around The Bay, even then I didn’t feel like this.  I mean, I was WIPED after charging up that thing, but the exhaustion was different.  I wanted to collapse but it didn’t feel like this.

Thoughts?  Do I go make an appointment with the doctor, explain it to her, and ask for a stress test?  My fear is that since I never experience the feeling when running, the stress test will not show anything.  Then it will be all for nothing.  And then when they see the early repolarization, I’ll have to go through all that explanation again.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 10th, 2007 at 9:12 pm and is filed under Injury and Pain, Workouts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.