Current understanding of the electrocardiographic manifestations of the ?athlete?s heart?.

Abstract

This review will describe those ECG patterns within the normal spectrum for an athlete, describe the impact of demographic phenotypes on ECG interpretation and define those ECG manifestations that are always considered abnormal and warrant further investigation.

Patterns of resting electrocardiogram of male college track and field athletes

“…The sight of young athletes dropping dead on the field of play provoked the search for prevention through screening (Bessem, 2017), which led notable international sports federations like the FIFA and the International Olympic Committee to lead the advocacy for compulsory pre-participation screening for all competitive athletes. Several authors (Parry-Williams & Sharma, 2017;Gray et al, 2020) had suggested that individuals who engage in regular, moderate to intensive exercise at least 4-8 hours a week can develop a series of physiological adaptations ranging from modifications in cardiac structure and function to autonomic tone, a phenomenon the authors referred to as 'the athlete's heart'. The phenomenon clinically regarded as "Athlete's Heart Syndrome" has been described in the works of several authors (Crouse et al, 2009;Di Paolo et al, 2012;Drezner et al, 2013;Parry-Williams & Sharma, 2017;Basu & Malhotra, 2018;Gassina et al, 2019;Gray et al, 2020) as a constellation of cardiac adaptations that occur in cardiac structure and function due to prolonged engagement in intensive exercise training.…”

“…Several authors (Parry-Williams & Sharma, 2017;Gray et al, 2020) had suggested that individuals who engage in regular, moderate to intensive exercise at least 4-8 hours a week can develop a series of physiological adaptations ranging from modifications in cardiac structure and function to autonomic tone, a phenomenon the authors referred to as 'the athlete's heart'. The phenomenon clinically regarded as "Athlete's Heart Syndrome" has been described in the works of several authors (Crouse et al, 2009;Di Paolo et al, 2012;Drezner et al, 2013;Parry-Williams & Sharma, 2017;Basu & Malhotra, 2018;Gassina et al, 2019;Gray et al, 2020) as a constellation of cardiac adaptations that occur in cardiac structure and function due to prolonged engagement in intensive exercise training. This adaptive modification of the athlete's heart in terms of structure and function has been an important subject of academic discourse and inquiry among scientists for many decades because there are no clear-cut distinctions between these benign, training-induced structural and functional remodeling of the athlete's heart and what constitutes indices of cardiac myopathies in the clinical setting.…”