Impact of Atrial Fibrillation and Atrial Fibrillation Therapies on Sports Performance in Athletes

[www.heartrhythmjournal.com]

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/17/2024 08:20PM by susan.d.

Very interesting
I think I am part of the 13% who had success detraining. I just past my 2 year AFIB free milestone on Nov 13th!
My AFIB started 7 years ago like gang busters while training for my fourth triathlon. I was training many hours on most days and routinely taking my HR to 100% of max. I had short episodes of AFIB almost every night with over 77 episodes my first year.

To make a long story short, I detrained by exercising an hour every day but keeping my HR below 60% of max. This really decrease my episodes. If I tried to increase intensity, I paid the price with an AFIB episode that evening. It seems to have taken me about 5 years of keeping my heart rate at a low level to 'heal' itself. About a year ago my heart started feeling normal again and I was able to start increasing my HR with no problems. Now I routinely get my heart rate to 90% max with no problems.

For me detraining was a fix but not a quick one.

As it's very individual, the problem is to fond how much exercise is too much exercise.
For some, it may require lots of training sessions and sustaining high HR levels, eventually leading to heart chambers enlargement.
For others (my case), the threshold can be low, resulting in AFib despite a perfectly "normal" heart.
Detraining in the first case seems more efficient than in the second one.