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Question:
Is it harmful to exercise above maximum heart rate during a 4-5 minute sprint?
Is it harmful to exercise above maximum heart rate during a 4-5 minute sprint? My MHR is 162, and during sprint it gets to 175 during the last minute or 2.
submitted by Sharon from Waycross, GA on 6/2/2016
Answer:
by Texas Heart Institute cardiologist, Scott R. Sherron, MD
Although it is relatively uncommon for a person to be able to achieve a heart rate significantly above 220 minus their age at any level of exercise, a few percent of people have genetically different max heart rates. Most of the time, this does not represent a disease state & short sprints achieving whatever max heart rate are reasonable as part of a supervised training regimen. However, it is important to be evaluated to exclude exercise induced arrhythmia. It is possible to have a dangerous rhythm that only shows up at peak exercise.
- Scott R. Sherron, MD
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Updated July 2016
