I’m 48 and reduced my weight from 260 lbs to 190 lbs over the last 18 months. I’ve spent most of the last 25 years weighing 240 lbs or more and being completely sedentary. I was taking Lantus (10 units), Metformin, Lipitor, and Lisinpril for 3 years… I’m still on Lipitor and Lisinopril. I’ve been doing mild cardio and lifting moderately over the last 18 months.
I’ve never had any heart-related symptoms. I’d like to train for a strongman competition, but that seems like the perfect athletic event to give myself a heart attack. My parents are in their 70’s and healthy, but both of my grandfathers died of heart attacks. One was in his 50’s; the other was in his 70’s.
I guess my questions are:
Are there any medical tests that can be done to determine if I can safely exercise intensely?
What symptoms would I have to present to my doctor/cardiologist to get those tests performed.
Why does a strongman event “seem like the perfect athletic event” to cause a heart attack more than any other athletic activity?
What, specifically, does your current training look like? Do you experience any chest pain/pressure or shortness of breath with your current exercise program?
It just seems like people are more likely to suffer a heart attack while doing something intense, like running with 250lb farmer’s implements, lifting atlas stones. and then dragging a weighted sled… Playing golf seems like it would be less likely to be an issue. Maybe I’m wrong about that.
I’ve never had any chest pain or shortness of breath.
I’m doing 5/3/1 with a few added sets at 90% of my actual max and do one strongman implement at the end of each workout. I swim laps for 30 mins, 3-4x per week. I intentionally avoid getting too out of breath with any of my training and rest as needed.
The fact that you’re able to perform that volume & intensity of training without becoming symptomatic is reassuring.
Of course, I can’t give you personal advice directly. If I was seeing a patient who could perform that amount of activity without any concerning symptoms and without a concerning personal history, I wouldn’t have a compelling reason to something like exercise stress testing. That sort of evaluation is meant to help stratify “intermediate risk” patients into those who need further evaluation (such as coronary angiography) and those who don’t.
