7 ms·

Athlete’s Heart (2003)

26 points by havella 7y ago

JshWright 7y ago
Medlife Crisis (a YouTube channel that deserves a much larger following) has a good video related to this topic: https://youtu.be/hT8GZlBBv5k https://youtu.be/hT8GZlBBv5k
- AQuantized 7y ago
  Good video, although I would like an analysis of how mortality rates change once you go beyond regular to extreme quantities of exercise.
crimsonalucard 7y ago
I've been doing interval training 3 times a week for roughly a decade. This involves a full 400 meter sprint followed by 4 100 meter sprints at full speed spaced by walking the corners of the track. This has resulted in remarkable gains in my endurance. There are many instances where I'm walking up a hill and I don't even realize everyone else is out of breath and half dying just to keep up with me. Additionally I jog 5 miles twice a week, but I think this had relatively little overall effect on my endurance. From 70 bpm my heart rate has lowered to a point where at it's lowest I measure 39 bpm over the past decade. This raised some concern in my primary care doctor who told me to cut down my exercise by 80%. I got a second opinion from a cardiologist who ran ultrasound and did a V02 max test on me and he told me I was fine and my heart was perfect and that I didn't need to cut down my exercise. Now I'm not so sure, I'm thinking of getting a third opinion. If I keep up this level of exercise my heart rate could go down to below 30 bpm. Although the effects of HIIT are remarkable no one knows the long term outcomes. Is there anybody else here who has been doing similar HIIT training for long periods of time (again a decade for me)... what's your experience?
- anu7df 7y ago
  Your results are fascinating. I wish I had the discipline to follow such a routine. I think your age is an important factor to consider when it comes to resting heart rate. Will you be comfortable disclosing it?
  - crimsonalucard 7y ago
    I'm quite old. 35. Note that 39 bpm is sleeping, 49 bpm is when I'm sitting down. Also note that my VO2 max is only superior when compared to normal people in their 20s. Among athletes it's not that great. There are tons of people who run a lot longer than me and are faster than me, but no one I know has stuck to HIIT for a decade. What is of note is that the 3 day a week interval training pushed my heart rate down waaay lower than normal. Additionally for the past 2 years I've been cutting back on my daily routine and while my endurance has gotten slightly worse my heart rate has not went back up. It's kind of concerning that this exercise has led to permanent changes in my heart. I think people need to watch out about HIIT training, it may not be good for humans in the long term.
    - anu7df 7y ago
      Hahaha. Quite old.. 35... As someone who will turn 40 this year I guess you will call me positively geriatric! Interesting that cutting back has resulted in endurance loss but not the heart rate going back up. But it is reasonable to suppose that endurance is sort of a leading indicator with resting heart rate following it. My wife has a low resting heart rate since her 20's (never really measured it before that.) She was never a big athlete or a good exerciser. Recently she has started an HIIT program, for general fitness and weight loss. I think we will need to track the heart rate carefully now.
      - Bubbadoo 7y ago
        Both of you are kids... I'm 59 and I do cardio mixed with weights. My RHR is 45 bpm, but has been as low as 35. Recently, I had to substitute cycling for running due to a diagnosis of osteoarthritis in my left hip. Sucks, as I love running and it's such a great cardio exercise. Low resting heart rates are nothing to worry about, as long as you're cleared by a doctor and the low rhr is from workouts.
    - hairofadog 7y ago
      > I’m quite old. 35. Oh jeez. I’ll just be over here covering myself up with dirt I guess.
- JohnJamesRambo 7y ago
  Why do you think the five miles twice a week is not responsible? Long runs are the classic recipe for building endurance as far as I know. I’ve found in my own running that the 4-5 mile range is where I start building real endurance, I’ve always assumed because that gives your heart a long enough work out for your body to take it seriously and make changes. I was surprised to learn that one long run a week built more endurance and gave me better race times than shorter runs every day.
  - crimsonalucard 7y ago
    Nah HIIT is not only more effective from my anecdotal experience but this is proven by science. Professional Athletes train with HIIT along with the long term workouts, but it's well known that HIIT is the greater causal factor that boosts ur endurance by a dramatic amount. For the first 5 years when I was doing this, HIIT was actually more painful then running 5 miles. When you come out of it, you should feel as if you did more damage. The first couple weeks you should be borderline ready to vomit. Additionally note some people don't genetically have the muscles to do this kind of training. For power you need the ACTN3 gene. If you never been a powerful sprinter in your life then stick with the slow runs.
    - DrOctagon 7y ago
      If HIIT training is what boosts endurance, why don't any elite marathoners train in this way? Why do they run ~100 mi or more each week, mostly at a low intensity?
      - angrysaki 7y ago
        I agree that HIIT is not some magical training methodology, and that elite endurance athletes do not train by only doing HIIT. My guess is that if you are only willing to train in the 3h/week range, maybe HIIT is your best bet. Steven Seiler has studied how most elite endurance athletes train, and found that they generally follow a polarized training model which is ~80% of sessions at low intensity (long endurence runs/rides/etc...) and 20% at high intensity. http://bikepartsreview.com/Polarized-training-for-cyclists.html http://bikepartsreview.com/Polarized-training-for-cyclists.h...
- didgeoridoo 7y ago
  This sounds familiar. I was an international-level rower for about 8 years when I was younger, and my training regimen was a mix of extremely intense HIIT and long (45min+) steady state workouts. Near the end of my career, I began suffering from very noticeable PVCs (premature ventricular contractions) whenever my heart rate would drop below 45bpm — that is, any time I was at rest, or trying to sleep. My EKG showed mild bundle branch block and echo showed moderate left ventricular hypertrophy. General consensus amongst the cardiologists was that, as long as the remodeling could be explained by exercise, they had no concerns. That was about 10 years ago now. I am far less fit today, and the symptoms described above have largely resolved. My echo shows a mostly-normal LV wall, and I haven’t had a skipped beat in years. That said, this recovery happened during my mid-to-late 20s. Not sure how this would have gone 20 years later.
  - crimsonalucard 7y ago
    That's scary. Thanks for sharing your experience.
- nradov 7y ago
  It is highly unlikely that continued training would drop your resting heart rate below 30 bpm. You are probably already close to your minimum. The world record is 27, and only a tiny fraction of genetic outliers can get close to that regardless of what they do. In general most exercise scientists consider polarized training to be the best approach for maximizing performance in endurance sports. Do something like 20% hard intervals and 80% at an easy steady pace (ideal percentages will vary a little by individual and sport).
  - crimsonalucard 7y ago
    Thanks that's reassuring. The thing I'm curious about is long term outcomes of hard intervals. There's no real research on that yet as far as I can tell, and I don't know anyone who has done HIIT for 3x week for a decade.
    - nradov 7y ago
      Right there are just too many variables and confounding factors to get high quality results from studying long term interval training. If you're concerned about it then realistically the only thing you can do is get annual heart scans and blood tests to catch any problems before they get too serious.
- tmm84 7y ago
  I do not do HIIT training but I have athlete's heart. I run almost everyday 2 miles (more on the weekends). I am not a fast runner by any stretch of the imagination (I average around 10k/h while running). My heart rate varies from 40 to 32 depending on what I am doing and how relaxed I am (34/32 when I am going to bed and 40 while I am at the keyboard). With the above info taken into account, I have had several tests done to ensure my heart is okay. I had 24 hour heart monitor test, a ultrasound taken of my heart for several minutes and several ECGs. The cardiologist wasn't scared by them and gave me the okay. I, personally, haven't had any negative effects due to my heart rate being low.
koolhead17 7y ago
I would recommend reading "The Haywire Heart: How too much exercise can kill you, and what you can do to protect your heart." The author has some athletes story on similar lines.

26 points by havella 7y ago

Medlife Crisis (a YouTube channel that deserves a much larger following) has a good video related to this topic: https://youtu.be/hT8GZlBBv5k https://youtu.be/hT8GZlBBv5k

AQuantized 7y ago
Good video, although I would like an analysis of how mortality rates change once you go beyond regular to extreme quantities of exercise.

crimsonalucard 7y ago

I've been doing interval training 3 times a week for roughly a decade. This involves a full 400 meter sprint followed by 4 100 meter sprints at full speed spaced by walking the corners of the track. This has resulted in remarkable gains in my endurance. There are many instances where I'm walking up a hill and I don't even realize everyone else is out of breath and half dying just to keep up with me. Additionally I jog 5 miles twice a week, but I think this had relatively little overall effect on my endurance. From 70 bpm my heart rate has lowered to a point where at it's lowest I measure 39 bpm over the past decade. This raised some concern in my primary care doctor who told me to cut down my exercise by 80%. I got a second opinion from a cardiologist who ran ultrasound and did a V02 max test on me and he told me I was fine and my heart was perfect and that I didn't need to cut down my exercise. Now I'm not so sure, I'm thinking of getting a third opinion. If I keep up this level of exercise my heart rate could go down to below 30 bpm. Although the effects of HIIT are remarkable no one knows the long term outcomes. Is there anybody else here who has been doing similar HIIT training for long periods of time (again a decade for me)... what's your experience?

anu7df 7y ago
Your results are fascinating. I wish I had the discipline to follow such a routine. I think your age is an important factor to consider when it comes to resting heart rate. Will you be comfortable disclosing it?
- crimsonalucard 7y ago
  I'm quite old. 35. Note that 39 bpm is sleeping, 49 bpm is when I'm sitting down. Also note that my VO2 max is only superior when compared to normal people in their 20s. Among athletes it's not that great. There are tons of people who run a lot longer than me and are faster than me, but no one I know has stuck to HIIT for a decade. What is of note is that the 3 day a week interval training pushed my heart rate down waaay lower than normal. Additionally for the past 2 years I've been cutting back on my daily routine and while my endurance has gotten slightly worse my heart rate has not went back up. It's kind of concerning that this exercise has led to permanent changes in my heart. I think people need to watch out about HIIT training, it may not be good for humans in the long term.
  - anu7df 7y ago
    Hahaha. Quite old.. 35... As someone who will turn 40 this year I guess you will call me positively geriatric! Interesting that cutting back has resulted in endurance loss but not the heart rate going back up. But it is reasonable to suppose that endurance is sort of a leading indicator with resting heart rate following it. My wife has a low resting heart rate since her 20's (never really measured it before that.) She was never a big athlete or a good exerciser. Recently she has started an HIIT program, for general fitness and weight loss. I think we will need to track the heart rate carefully now.
    - Bubbadoo 7y ago
      Both of you are kids... I'm 59 and I do cardio mixed with weights. My RHR is 45 bpm, but has been as low as 35. Recently, I had to substitute cycling for running due to a diagnosis of osteoarthritis in my left hip. Sucks, as I love running and it's such a great cardio exercise. Low resting heart rates are nothing to worry about, as long as you're cleared by a doctor and the low rhr is from workouts.
  - hairofadog 7y ago
    > I’m quite old. 35. Oh jeez. I’ll just be over here covering myself up with dirt I guess.
JohnJamesRambo 7y ago
Why do you think the five miles twice a week is not responsible? Long runs are the classic recipe for building endurance as far as I know. I’ve found in my own running that the 4-5 mile range is where I start building real endurance, I’ve always assumed because that gives your heart a long enough work out for your body to take it seriously and make changes. I was surprised to learn that one long run a week built more endurance and gave me better race times than shorter runs every day.
- crimsonalucard 7y ago
  Nah HIIT is not only more effective from my anecdotal experience but this is proven by science. Professional Athletes train with HIIT along with the long term workouts, but it's well known that HIIT is the greater causal factor that boosts ur endurance by a dramatic amount. For the first 5 years when I was doing this, HIIT was actually more painful then running 5 miles. When you come out of it, you should feel as if you did more damage. The first couple weeks you should be borderline ready to vomit. Additionally note some people don't genetically have the muscles to do this kind of training. For power you need the ACTN3 gene. If you never been a powerful sprinter in your life then stick with the slow runs.
  - DrOctagon 7y ago
    If HIIT training is what boosts endurance, why don't any elite marathoners train in this way? Why do they run ~100 mi or more each week, mostly at a low intensity?
    - angrysaki 7y ago
      I agree that HIIT is not some magical training methodology, and that elite endurance athletes do not train by only doing HIIT. My guess is that if you are only willing to train in the 3h/week range, maybe HIIT is your best bet. Steven Seiler has studied how most elite endurance athletes train, and found that they generally follow a polarized training model which is ~80% of sessions at low intensity (long endurence runs/rides/etc...) and 20% at high intensity. http://bikepartsreview.com/Polarized-training-for-cyclists.html http://bikepartsreview.com/Polarized-training-for-cyclists.h...
didgeoridoo 7y ago
This sounds familiar. I was an international-level rower for about 8 years when I was younger, and my training regimen was a mix of extremely intense HIIT and long (45min+) steady state workouts. Near the end of my career, I began suffering from very noticeable PVCs (premature ventricular contractions) whenever my heart rate would drop below 45bpm — that is, any time I was at rest, or trying to sleep. My EKG showed mild bundle branch block and echo showed moderate left ventricular hypertrophy. General consensus amongst the cardiologists was that, as long as the remodeling could be explained by exercise, they had no concerns. That was about 10 years ago now. I am far less fit today, and the symptoms described above have largely resolved. My echo shows a mostly-normal LV wall, and I haven’t had a skipped beat in years. That said, this recovery happened during my mid-to-late 20s. Not sure how this would have gone 20 years later.
- crimsonalucard 7y ago
  That's scary. Thanks for sharing your experience.
nradov 7y ago
It is highly unlikely that continued training would drop your resting heart rate below 30 bpm. You are probably already close to your minimum. The world record is 27, and only a tiny fraction of genetic outliers can get close to that regardless of what they do. In general most exercise scientists consider polarized training to be the best approach for maximizing performance in endurance sports. Do something like 20% hard intervals and 80% at an easy steady pace (ideal percentages will vary a little by individual and sport).
- crimsonalucard 7y ago
  Thanks that's reassuring. The thing I'm curious about is long term outcomes of hard intervals. There's no real research on that yet as far as I can tell, and I don't know anyone who has done HIIT for 3x week for a decade.
  - nradov 7y ago
    Right there are just too many variables and confounding factors to get high quality results from studying long term interval training. If you're concerned about it then realistically the only thing you can do is get annual heart scans and blood tests to catch any problems before they get too serious.
tmm84 7y ago
I do not do HIIT training but I have athlete's heart. I run almost everyday 2 miles (more on the weekends). I am not a fast runner by any stretch of the imagination (I average around 10k/h while running). My heart rate varies from 40 to 32 depending on what I am doing and how relaxed I am (34/32 when I am going to bed and 40 while I am at the keyboard). With the above info taken into account, I have had several tests done to ensure my heart is okay. I had 24 hour heart monitor test, a ultrasound taken of my heart for several minutes and several ECGs. The cardiologist wasn't scared by them and gave me the okay. I, personally, haven't had any negative effects due to my heart rate being low.

koolhead17 7y ago

I would recommend reading "The Haywire Heart: How too much exercise can kill you, and what you can do to protect your heart." The author has some athletes story on similar lines.