I was with Grainne and Orla in our old house waiting for our landlord to arrive so we could give him our keys and get our deposits back. I was getting bored, looked for something to pass the time. Orla was sitting with her legs crossed at the knee. I watched her foot for a bit and I was able to tell her that she had a resting heartrate between 70 bpm.
I could figure this out is because major arteries travel behind/through the knee joint to the foot. Crossing your legs at the knee compresses the vessels [sometimes leading to numbness and the horrible pins-and-needles that follows the retreating numbness]. Every heartbeat sends a pulse of blood through the arteries and the pulse is enough to jolt the dead weight of the crossed leg visibly. Count the pulses for a given time and voila you have a heartrate.
Alternatively, touching fingertip to thumb gives a pulse too. There is a vessel in the palm- divide the palm into quarters, and it would be slightly off centre in the thumb joints quarter- that has a visible pulse. Not the usual spots, although some heart monitors are attached to the thumb.
Every heartbeat sees a pressure wave travel radially from the heart, if one sits still for long enough one can feel the "wash" of blood through the body. I find it rather relaxing, like floating in a pool with the water sloshing at the edges, nice way to fall asleep if you have trouble falling asleep like I do.
In October of my first year in college, I decided I would do a fitness test. They measured my resting heart rate, 60bpm. They put me on a bike and strapped a heart monitor to my back. I was told this would measure my fitness, but only once my heart rate went over 120bpm. Off I go on the bike. I could see the monitor output in front of me. Any time it approached 100bpm, I made it fall back to low 85-90. I was left on the bike for about 10 minutes, afterwhich the trainer gave up on that exercise. It was pretty easy to do, I just told my heart to slow down. I'm not much more than a poorly educated westerner, imagine what real masters of their bodies could do!?
4 months, later I went for another test. Resting heartrate was down to 50bpm. They had left a note about the results of the last test. They decided there was no point in me trying it again. Although he did tell me that endurance athletes can have resting heart rates less than 30bpm, if I really focus I can get it down to 33-38bpm (37.5 just now) :(
On The upside I am technically considered and endurance athlete :)
.And just in case you are wondering about heart size...
More reading, and more
I could figure this out is because major arteries travel behind/through the knee joint to the foot. Crossing your legs at the knee compresses the vessels [sometimes leading to numbness and the horrible pins-and-needles that follows the retreating numbness]. Every heartbeat sends a pulse of blood through the arteries and the pulse is enough to jolt the dead weight of the crossed leg visibly. Count the pulses for a given time and voila you have a heartrate.
Alternatively, touching fingertip to thumb gives a pulse too. There is a vessel in the palm- divide the palm into quarters, and it would be slightly off centre in the thumb joints quarter- that has a visible pulse. Not the usual spots, although some heart monitors are attached to the thumb.
Every heartbeat sees a pressure wave travel radially from the heart, if one sits still for long enough one can feel the "wash" of blood through the body. I find it rather relaxing, like floating in a pool with the water sloshing at the edges, nice way to fall asleep if you have trouble falling asleep like I do.
In October of my first year in college, I decided I would do a fitness test. They measured my resting heart rate, 60bpm. They put me on a bike and strapped a heart monitor to my back. I was told this would measure my fitness, but only once my heart rate went over 120bpm. Off I go on the bike. I could see the monitor output in front of me. Any time it approached 100bpm, I made it fall back to low 85-90. I was left on the bike for about 10 minutes, afterwhich the trainer gave up on that exercise. It was pretty easy to do, I just told my heart to slow down. I'm not much more than a poorly educated westerner, imagine what real masters of their bodies could do!?
4 months, later I went for another test. Resting heartrate was down to 50bpm. They had left a note about the results of the last test. They decided there was no point in me trying it again. Although he did tell me that endurance athletes can have resting heart rates less than 30bpm, if I really focus I can get it down to 33-38bpm (37.5 just now) :(
On The upside I am technically considered and endurance athlete :)
.And just in case you are wondering about heart size...
More reading, and more
Edit: I want to make this!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.emant.com/694006.page
heart monitor and blood oxygen all in one! awesome.
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