Entrepreneur vs athlete: whose pulse will be higher? Editorial experiment

Have you ever wondered in which situations your heart rate accelerates to its maximum like a speed machine? Opinions are often divided in this regard: some people believe that it is necessary to experience physical stress, for example, to attend a high-interval training session or to go jogging for the first time in your life. Others are sure that heart rate monitor readings go off the scale at the moment of an emotional outburst: at a serious meeting or during the defense of a business project.

“Championship” and the bank for entrepreneurs “Tochka” launch a unique experiment, during which we will analyze the heart rate of an athlete and an entrepreneur in their usual conditions. In the case of the entrepreneur, we will observe his heart rate during the project defense; the athlete’s heart rate monitor will be recorded during a bicycle training session.

Then we will switch our heroes for one day in order to measure how much the data will change if we move them out of their comfort zone and into unfamiliar conditions. We’ll compare all the data: at rest, doing their usual activities, and in an uncomfortable situation – and find out if being an entrepreneur is really as emotionally and physically taxing as being an athlete.

Why it matters.

Our heart rate is a major indicator of psychophysiological stress. We don’t even think about situations where it changes dramatically. By tracking your body’s normal heart rate zones and understanding the moments when your body feels stressed and makes your heart beat harder, you can better understand what situations can throw you off balance. This means you will be able to work through these moments from a psychological point of view and apply different techniques to calm your pulse as quickly as possible and return to balance.

Our heroes

Victoria Shubina

Five-time IRONMAN, elite coach of World Class triathlon network.

Keeping track of my heart rate is very important for me as an athlete who has to distribute his forces. With the help of HR parameter I can understand in time in what functional state I am, how tired I am, how much energy I still have and how I should further distribute my forces in the daily cycle. For this purpose I use a special gadget – a sports watch. By the way, I monitor my heart rate not only during training, but also during sleep, for example. How much I sleep, what my heart rate was, what sleep cycles I had and how long they lasted – deep/shallow sleep zones. All of this helps me to have a quality recovery, to keep myself in energy balance.

But the most important thing is not just to follow the numbers on your smart watch, but to listen to your body, to learn to understand which pulse zones are comfortable for you to work, do sports, just live. This is very useful knowledge for working on your productivity and efficiency both in business and on a serious distance like IRONMAN. If you learn how to distribute yourself, you will have more energy, more strength that you can invest in something really valuable.

Tip: I recommend that all my athletes take a fitness test at the very beginning of their training process . I think this is extremely important, because most people have a very long gap between school physical education and starting to train as an adult, conscious age. In my triathlon section we work with a doctor who helps us to conduct timely examinations. As a coach I learn a lot of parameters thanks to this: how the cardiovascular system works, how the heart works under load – stable or not. At the same time, the athlete and the coach get an understanding of the training pulse zones, which is very important, we have 5 levels of intensity. With an understanding of all 5 levels, the training process can be adjusted as accurately as possible.

Lifehack: I can only relax with special procedures aimed at relaxation. I generally believe that both from the point of view of sports and business, to be effective, you need to be able to recover well, then in any situation you will be less susceptible to stress and various negative factors. Giving so much energy to some business, you need to compensate for it. Personally, I have a list of different recovery workouts: yoga, pilates, stretching and rituals such as: bath, massage. Another important aspect to help you calm down is to learn how to quickly switch from one process to another. Sports helps me with this, because when the muscles are working, the brain is resting. This can be a great way to help you remove some psychological barriers, unload your head before an important meeting.

Prediction: if we’re talking about an intense workout, your heart rate will be off the charts quite seriously. We don’t forget that the heart is the motor that provides blood, nutrients and oxygen to the muscles. Therefore, as soon as the muscles start contracting rapidly, the heart starts to actively engage in work. And if we’re talking about some mental stress and mental stress, the heart rate will obviously rise above average due to a serious hormonal surge. Each of these processes involves completely different systems in our body. In any case, sport teaches you to understand and feel your body. My heart rate during high-intensity training is about 184 beats, which is not a small number, so I think that no matter how exciting the negotiations may be, if they are not connected with jumping out and sharp waving of arms, I can cope.

Ilya Stupenkov

Entrepreneur, co-owner of the trampoline center COSMICA.

I can’t say that I keep track of my heart rate, I don’t even wear heart rate monitors, which are fashionable nowadays, because a classic watch looks better on my hand. I think that monitoring your heart rate is more necessary for athletes, because it is very important to control your condition during physical exertion. On the business side of things, it is absolutely true that serious anxiety can affect the outcome of a business meeting. I am convinced that everything comes from the head: if before the negotiations you start replaying negative outcomes in your head, you start to worry, fear arises, and this is where, by the way, your heart rate rises to its maximum limits.

Lifehack: I believe that positive thinking will help you cope with anxiety. Switch mentally to some pleasant moments, imagine that the meeting is already over and you have already succeeded. At such times, we may be frightened not so much by the subject matter of the negotiation as by the anticipation and the unknown.

Prediction: Since I don’t monitor my heart rate, I will be very interested to observe the results of the experiment and find out what my body will tell about me.

Very soon we will summarize the results and find out if being an entrepreneur is really as emotionally and physically demanding as being an athlete. What do you think, at what point will your heart rate be higher: during training or during important negotiations?