How to tweak your device for peak performance

Hi. I've had a pacemaker for years. I'm looking for advice on how to tweak my device to get better performance from it while biking and exercising. My own heart used to kick in when I excercised. But now I seem 100% dependent and I feel it's not providing adequate pacing for what I'm trying to do on the bike. Quite the competitive athlete here. Are there other top athletes on this site? I'm heavy into mountain biking right now. Struggling going uphill as the pacer won't kick in and paces too slowly. Any tips or recommendations? 
Thanks in advance, 

MTB mom. 

3 Comments

You probably don't have the best device for biking...

by crustyg - 2024-05-14 06:50:07

Obviously I'm biased as I have a BostonSci Accolade, chosen specifically by my EP-doc for road cycling, but to be blunt your device is never going to be that good for cycling.

MTB work is a little easier: there's often quite a lot of upper body movement when off-road, unlike road cycling where there's almost nothing that can be sensed to feed into the Rate Response algorithm.

In general, get the accelerometer set to be pretty sensitive with only a low threshold of acvtivity (==movement) for the sensor feed to increase HR.

There are some seriously active/competitive folk here with SSS+CI and some of them also have BostonSci devices (for the Minute Ventilation feature).

Best wishes.

REsponse..

by MTB mom - 2024-05-14 08:57:59

Hi CrustyG, thanks this is helpful. I can see how road cycling is more of a challenge. Was hoping to get into gravel biking, but may find it more frustrating if I want to get some speed.

I'm curious, if you dont mind sharing, what is your max pulse rate set to? I'm thinking of asking to set mine higher. It's at 160 right now. I'm 47.

Thanks again!

exercise

by Tracey_E - 2024-05-14 10:49:23

As crusty explained, if you need rate response to get your rate up, your device is going to need to sense movement before it responds so there may be a limit to how well they can fine tune it. Mine was fine tuned while I was on a treadmill, as if for a stress test, so they could watch real time and adjust. They watched to see how high my rate got on exertion, then set my upper limit based on that. I regularly get up to 165-170 so they put it at 190 to give me a cushion.

Some devices only go to 160, so you'll want to look up what the max is on your device. The one I had before this was like that. Every time I got over 150, I'd have to stop and let me rate come down. It was frustrating, so went on a low dose beta blocker to keep it down. Then when I got a new one, they gave me one that went higher.

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Member Quotes

I'm 35 and got my pacemaker a little over a year ago. It definitely is not a burden to me. In fact, I have more energy (which my husband enjoys), can do more things with my kids and have weight because of having the energy.