Find out why athletic heart syndrome occurs and how to exercise to develop your heart properly without risking your health. Sports events attract large numbers of spectators. Today big sports is a highly profitable industry. To be convinced of this, just look at the revenues of the world's leading football clubs. However, one has only to think about the means by which high sports results are achieved, because an ordinary person cannot show them.
Now we are not talking about pharmacological support, but those physical activities that the body of athletes is forced to endure. Daily training at the limit of possibilities negatively affects all systems of the body and internal organs. Our body is able to adapt to the external conditions of life, but this requires serious changes in the internal environment. Today we will tell you how sports heart syndrome manifests itself.
The structure of the heart muscle
The heart muscle is the basis of our life, but it would be useless without blood vessels, which literally permeate the entire human body. This whole complex is called the cardiovascular system, the main task of which is to deliver nutrients to tissues and utilize metabolites. In addition, the cardiovascular system contributes to the maintenance of the internal environment that the body needs for normal functioning.
The heart muscle is a kind of pump that pumps blood through the vessels. In total, scientists distinguish two circles of blood circulation:
- First - passes through the lungs and is designed to saturate the blood with oxygen. As well as recycling carbon dioxide.
- Second - affects all tissues of the body, delivering oxygen to them.
We actually have two pumps and each consists of two chambers - the ventricle and the atrium. The first chamber, due to contraction, pumps blood, and the atrium is a reservoir. Since the heart is a muscle, its tissues are similar in structure to skeletal muscles. The difference between them about the essence is one - in the cells of the heart there are 20 percent more mitochondria. Recall that these organelles are designed to oxidize glucose and fatty acids for energy.
Etiology and pathogenesis of sports heart syndrome
We have already said that high sports results can be shown only if the athlete is properly trained. In order to achieve success in sports, when drawing up the educational and training process, it is necessary to take into account the individual characteristics of the organism, as well as the age of the athlete. Scientists have been trying for many years to determine the effect of physical activity on the heart muscle.
However, there are still many questions. Since sports results are constantly growing, new tasks are set for sports medicine and cardiology in particular, for example, a thorough diagnosis of all morphological changes in the heart, dosage of loads, etc. cardiovascular system under the influence of physical exertion.
If physical activity affects the body during the development of various inflammatory processes, or their indicator turned out to be excessively high, then pathological changes cannot be avoided. All organs of athletes, as the level of skill grows, undergo serious morphological changes, because only thanks to them, the body is able to adapt to a change in the external environment.
Similar changes occur in the cardiovascular system. Today, scientists know how sports heart syndrome manifests itself, but so far the limit has not been established when this change becomes pathological. It should be noted that in those sports disciplines where high demands are placed on the process of oxygen delivery to athletes, training is reduced to training the heart muscle. This is true in relation to cyclic, game and speed-power sports.
The coach should be well versed in the structural and functional features of sports heart syndrome and understand the importance of this phenomenon for the health of his ward. Back in the nineteenth century, scientists drew attention to some of the features of the development of the cardiovascular system in athletes. With a sufficiently high level of training, the athlete has an increased "elastic" pulse, and the size of the heart muscle also increases.
For the first time the term "sports heart" was introduced into circulation in 1899. It signified an increase in the size of the heart and was considered a serious pathology. From that moment on, this concept has firmly entered our lexicon, and is actively used by specialists and the athletes themselves. In 1938 G. Lang proposed to distinguish two types of the "sports heart" syndrome - pathological and physiological. According to the definition of this scientist, the phenomenon of the sports heart can be interpreted in two ways:
- An organ that is more efficient.
- Pathological changes accompanied by a decrease in the performance indicator.
For a physiological sports heart, the ability to work economically at rest and actively at high physical exertion can be considered a characteristic ability. This suggests that a sports heart can be considered as an adaptation of the body to constant physical stress. If we talk about how sports heart syndrome manifests itself, then first of all there is an expansion of the muscle cavities or thickening of the walls. The most important phenomenon in this situation should be considered ventricular dilatation, because they are able to provide maximum performance.
The size of the heart muscle in athletes is largely determined by the nature of their activities. The heart reaches its maximum size in representatives of cyclic sports, for example, runners. Less significant changes occur in the body of athletes who develop not only endurance, but also other qualities. In speed-strength sports disciplines in athletes, the volume of the heart muscle changes insignificantly in comparison with ordinary people.
Considering all of the above, hypertrophy of the heart muscle in representatives of speed-strength sports cannot be considered a rational phenomenon. In such situations, increased medical supervision is required to establish the cause of the hypertrophy of the heart muscle. It must be remembered that the physiological syndrome of a sports heart has certain limits.
Even in representatives of cyclic sports, with an increase in the size of the heart of more than 1200 cubic centimeters, it is a symptom of a transition to pathological dilation. This may be due to a poorly structured training process. On average, with the physiological syndrome of a sports heart, the volume of the organ can increase by 15 or a maximum of 20 percent during the period of preparation for tournaments.
When talking about assessing the signs of the physiological syndrome of a sports heart, it is necessary to consider all the reasons that can cause these changes. With a rational training process, there are positive morphological and functional changes in the work of the organ. The high functionality of the heart can be considered from the point of view of the manifestation of the long-term adaptive capacity of the organism. Trainers should remember that a competent training process contributes not only to an increase in the size of the heart muscle, but also to the appearance of new capillaries.
As a result, the process of gas exchange between tissues and blood is accelerated. An increase in the bloodstream reduces the blood flow rate, while ensuring the most rational use of the oxygen contained in the blood. With an increase in the level of fitness, the blood flow rate decreases. Thus, we can safely state the fact that the increase in the functionality of the heart muscle depends not only on the size of the organ, but also on the number of blood vessels.
Today, scientists are confident that in order to increase the efficiency of the heart, the rate of myocardial capillarization must improve. Also, recent studies in this direction make it clear that the physiological syndrome of a sports heart must correspond to the athlete's metabolic rate. This is largely due to the fact that the vascular reserves of the heart muscle increase much faster in comparison with the size of the organ.
The first adaptive response of the body to training should be a decrease in heart rate (not only at rest, but also under excessive loads), as well as an increase in the size of the organ. If all these processes are proceeding correctly. Then a gradual increase in the circumference of the ventricles is achieved.
Under the influence of physical exertion, after each contraction of the heart muscle, two or even three times more blood should be pumped, and the time should be reduced by 2 times. This can be achieved by increasing the size of the heart. In the course of morphological studies, it was proved that the increase in the volume of the heart muscle occurs due to the thickening (hypertrophy) of the walls of the organ and the expansion (dilatation) of the cavities of the organ.
To achieve the most rational adaptation of the heart to high physical activity, a harmonious course of the processes of hypertrophy and dilatation is necessary. However, an irrational path of organ development is also possible. Often this phenomenon occurs in children who began to actively engage in sports at an early age. In the course of research, scientists have established. That at the age of 6 to 7 years, already eight months after the start of classes, the mass of the left ventricle and the thickness of the walls significantly increase. However, this does not change the end-dialistic volume indicator and the ejection fraction itself.
Sports heart syndrome treatment
Even if negative results of heart diagnostics are obtained, the athlete and his coach need to take certain actions in a short time. First of all, this concerns the cessation of classes until the regression of the process of organ hypertrophy occurs and the ECG result improves.
Most often, to solve the problem, it is enough to observe the correct rest and stress regimen. If, during the diagnosis, serious changes in the heart muscle were identified, then drug therapy will be required. When the work of the cardiovascular system returns to normal. You can begin to gradually increase the motor mode and gradually increase the load. More clearly, all of these actions should only be undertaken with the participation of a sports medicine practitioner.
More information about Athletic Heart Syndrome in the following video:
