Why do athletes have a slow heart rate?

Heart rate is the rate at which the heart beats. It is an important indicator to measure the health of the heart. Therefore, most physical examinations include a heart rate test. A normal person's heart rate is relatively constant, about 70 beats per minute, while an athlete's heart rate is slower, significantly lower than that of ordinary people. So why do athletes have a slow heart rate? Let’s take a look at the explanation below.

Some athletes have a slower heart rate than normal people. Athletes have strong myocardial contractility and large heart rate reserve, so their heart rate is slower, but rarely lower than 50 beats per minute. The bradycardia phenomenon in athletes is the result of increased tension of the vagus nerve that controls cardiac activity and decreased tension of the sympathetic nerve during years of training. This phenomenon has positive significance for the athletes' sports life.

The occurrence of sinus bradycardia in athletes is the result of increased tension in the vagus nerve that controls cardiac activity and decreased tension in the sympathetic nerve during years of training. This phenomenon has positive significance for the athletes' sports life. At the same time, due to the long-term physical exercise of athletes, the content of myocardial contractile protein and myoglobin increases, a large number of capillaries in the myocardium are newly formed, and the blood supply increases. As a result, the myocardial fibers become thicker, the myocardium becomes stronger, the heart's contractility increases, and the heart capacity also increases.

The average person's heart needs to beat 75 times per minute (average) to deliver 5250 ml of blood to the whole body, while an athlete only needs to beat about 40 times to deliver the same amount of blood to the whole body. It can be seen from this that the slower heart rate of athletes is different from the bradycardia of ordinary people. An athlete's sinus bradycardia is the result of physical exercise. This type of heart can better adapt to the athlete's life. During extremely intense exercise, it can exert its greatest potential and fully mobilize the body's reserve strength. During maximum intensity exercise, the athlete's stroke volume can increase from 100 ml at rest to 179 ml, and the output per minute can be as high as 35 liters. In non-exercise subjects, stroke volume can only increase from 71 ml at rest to 113 ml, and minute output can only increase to 22 liters. At the same time, after the exercise starts, athletes can quickly mobilize the cardiovascular system to carry out activities, and after the exercise, they can quickly return to a quiet state.

Therefore, it is generally believed that athletes' sinus bradycardia is a good response to improved heart function after long-term training, so sinus bradycardia is used as a reference indicator to judge the degree of training.