If you’ve been pounding the pavement, clocking in hours at the gym, or just generally being a fitness fanatic, you can breathe a sigh of relief.
A recent study published in the European Heart Journal suggests that high levels of regular exercise do not negatively impact heart structure or function. So, your heart’s not only in shape—it’s not in danger, either.
Researchers from the NIHR Leicester Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) conducted this study, focusing on the widely held belief that excessive exercise might harm the heart.
The results? Your heart might be working harder, but it’s not working against you.
Professor Tom Yates, a leading voice in Physical Activity, Sedentary Behaviour, and Health at the University of Leicester, pointed out, “Some fairly extreme changes have been observed in the hearts of endurance athletes, as the cardiac muscles and chamber sizes adapt to the high levels of work it has to do.
In a small number of cases, these changes overlap with indicators of heart conditions that we would normally treat, such as cardiomyopathies.”
However, this study turned its gaze away from elite athletes to focus on the rest of us—the recreational exercisers.
Analyzing data from over 10,000 participants from the UK Biobank, researchers assessed the hearts of individuals who were logging impressive amounts of physical activity—up to 288 minutes per day for women and 240 minutes per day for men.
These levels were gauged using wrist-worn accelerometers, ensuring accurate measurements of daily moderate-to-vigorous physical activity and vigorous-intensity physical activity.
The study’s measurements, taken using advanced cardiac magnetic resonance methods, included key indicators such as left ventricular end-diastolic chamber volume, wall thickness, and ejection fraction—the kind of detailed heart data that gets cardiologists excited.
The findings? Even among those who exercised the most, the heart’s structure and function remained within the normal range.
Professor Gerry McCann, a specialist in Cardiac Imaging at the University of Leicester, highlighted the study’s reassuring results: “We saw that in those people with the highest levels of regular physical activity, the heart’s pumping chambers were larger than those who were inactive, however these adaptions remained within normal ranges. In addition, there was no evidence that the heart’s muscles thickened to unhealthy levels.
Therefore, in this population, there was no evidence that high levels of recreational physical activity were associated with heart physiologies that mimic heart disease.”
In other words, your heart isn’t just along for the ride—it’s adapting and thriving. These findings are particularly encouraging for those who might have worried that their exercise regimen was doing more harm than good.
To wrap things up, Professor Tom Yates offered some final words of comfort: “Those who enjoy high levels of recreational exercise should find these results reassuring.”
So, if you’re a regular on the running trails or the gym floor, keep doing what you’re doing. Your heart’s in great shape, and you’ve got the science to back it up.
For those interested in diving deeper into the details, the full study is available on the European Heart Journal’s website here.