Very fast heartbeat on 2650 m altitude. what to do to strengthn my hear?

Question

last week end i went a mountain after so many years. The altitude I reached the altitude of 2650 m. my heart started beating so fast that i decided to quit and i came down home.

what do you do to strenght your heart and aspiration system to adjust to such pressure? the place i live is on 1200 m altitude.

of course i have started jogging and other general sports. but like to know others' experience in mountain climbing.

(i'm 33 and a woman)

Answer 1

Train at a high altitude, simple. (well that answer is anyway).

Answer 2

Well a high heart beat isn't necessarily a bad thing, just means you are working hard!  And going up a mountain is hard work no matter how good you are at riding!

But to answer your question, the way to get a lower heart rate while climbing at altitude is as simple as doing it.   Keep at it.  

Also you can do TT's at your threshold once or twice a week.  There are test you can do to calc your threshold, if you look it up on the net I'm sure you will find a good one.  

Another way would be to get a VO2max test, but you can estimate your threshold to be around 80% of your max heart rate.  

As you train at your threshold, over time, it will raise.

This is the principle that over time, with training it will take less energy to produce the same result.  

Anyway hope that helps, if you have questions, let me know!

Answer 3

This problem is called hypoxia-related tachycardia, or hypoxic tachycardia.  Essentially, this means "low-oxygen-related fast heart rate".  

The problem with altitude is not exactly the pressure, but the available oxygen.  Because the air pressure is lower, the air sort of "spreads out".  This means that a lungful of air at sea level contains much more oxygen than a lungful of air at 2650m.    The human body is not good at dealing with decreased levels of oxygen, so you breathe heavily and your heart rate speeds up to try and take in enough oxygen.

To counteract the effects of high altitude, athletes train in altitude chambers (air-tight chambers where some of the air has been pumped out, replicating the effects of high altitude) or actually train up mountains.  Other ways include wearing a mask that forces you to breathe more heavily whilst training (talk to a doctor first as this can be dangerous) and doing plenty of sea-level cardio-vascular (CV or "heart and lungs") exercise such as cycling, rowing, running, steps or eliptical training.

Be careful about training at altitude - the weather can come down very suddenly and large temperature drops and rises are common.  You can easily get stranded, so take a friend and/or mobile phone with you, just in case.  I've seen plenty of people trapped on mountains because the weather comes in without warning and they get wet and cold and can't move quickly enough.

Note: Jogging and running will train the opposing muscles to cycling, so you might want to limit them in favour of cycling or rowing.

Answer 4

get your self a heart rate monitor (i use a Timex Ironman, my wife is getting the Nike Imura), but keep training thats about all you can do...