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Long term RHR in an ex athlete (lemmy.blahaj.zone)

submitted 2 years ago by [email protected] to c/cycling

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/103924

Around 7 years ago, I was a sub elite runner, and I did a lot of cycling as cross training. My resting heart rate got incredibly low during that time.

However, these days, even though I'm relatively unfit, my resting HR pretty much hasn't come back up from where it was when I was an active athlete.

Has anyone else found something similar? It's easy to find active athletes with low resting HR, but I don't really see much discussion about what the long term change to HR is in ex athletes.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I just went and did some digging and found an interesting study (which I guess I could have done before posting, but what fun would that be?)

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18512181/

We performed a longitudinal follow-up study in 157 former elite athletes who had records of bradycardia < 50 bpm when they were active in high-level competition. All had retired from competitive sport for a minimum of five years prior to participation in the follow-up examination

[...]

In the post-retirement period, a total of 65 % of participants had persistent bradycardia, 18 % with bradycardia < 50 bpm. Multivariate analysis showed that persistence of resting bradycardia was associated with regular exercise and number of years in high-level competition, but not with symptoms such as palpitations, dizziness or syncope, or major ECG alterations.

And that does seem to capture me. < 50 bpm, with no palpitations, dizziness or syncope, or major ECG alterations.

So I guess that answers my question. It's relatively normal in ex athletes, even if not common

[–] xohshoo 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

do you still exercise at all? I bet even a little might be enough to keep some of the adaptations as opposed to being completely sedentary.
Great find on that article, thanks!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

I scored a bout of pneumonia just before covid hit in 2019, and I was basically sedentary for 2 years after that. That pushed my RHR in to the high 40s.

These days, I do exercise a little now and that has reduced my RHR back down to the low 40s. That's still higher than it was when I was an active athlete though