Cardiac arrhythmias are heartbeat problems -- your heart starts beating too slowly, too quickly or too irregularly. Your symptoms may include heart palpitations, in which your heart repeatedly skips a beat and you experience shortness of breath, chest pain, dizziness and fainting. These symptoms can escalate to sudden cardiac arrest, in which the heart stops pumping blood. Exercise does not cause arrhythmias, but it may result in an arrhythmia attack by stressing the heart and revealing preexisting heart weaknesses or other contributing medical problems.
Cardiac Arrhythmias
Cardiac arrhythmias generally fall into one of two major categories: tachycardia, in which the heart beats faster than 100 beats a minute and bradycardia, in which the heart beats at a rate below 60 beats a minute. The heartbeat is usually disturbed because a medical condition has disrupted the electrical impulses that cause your heart to contract and pump blood. The U.S. National Heart Lung and Blood Institute provides online videos, "Types of Arrhythmia," showing how different arrhythmias affect the heart.
Causes of Arrhythmias
A Mayo Clinic essay, "Arrhythmias," lists multiple causes for a disturbed heartbeat, including scarred heart tissue from heart attacks, an enlarged heart, blocked heart arteries, diabetes, high blood pressure, smoking, drinking too much caffeine, drug abuse, drinking too much alcohol, stress, medications, an overactive thyroid gland, electrical shock, herbal treatments and dietary supplements. If one or more of your relatives has a particular type of heart arrhythmia, you may have a hereditary heart problem.
Exercise and Arrhythmias
Some arrhythmias are harmless cardiac responses to an unusually demanding sports event or a transient response to drinking too much caffeine before your daily jogging -- other arrhythmias are life-threatening. If you are experiencing symptoms of arrhythmia during or after exercise, it is imperative that you make an appointment with your general practitioner, who will take a medical history of your problem. If your heart problem is serious, your general practitioner will refer you to a heart specialist, known as a cardiologist.
Tests and Diagnosis
Your cardiologist has many possible tests that can be used to determine the exact nature of your arrhythmia, as described in an essay, "Arrhythmia," offered by Bupa, a British health insurance company. Your cardiologist may start with an electrocardiogram or ECG in which wires connected to a machine in the cardiologist's office are attached to the skin over your heart to measure your heart's electrical activity. You may also undergo a stress test, in which you exercise on a treadmill or a stationary bicycle while hooked up to an ECG machine.
Arrhythmia Treatments
Treatment of arrhythmia ranges from basic preventative measures to medication and surgery, depending on the severity of the arrhythmia. Your cardiologist may treat a minor arrhythmia by switching you from daily jogging to brisk walking and putting you on medication. If your arrhythmia is dangerous, you may have to undergo surgical procedures. One well-known type of arrhythmia surgery is the implantation of a pacemaker under the skin of your chest, which delivers electrical signals to your heart which stimulate it to beat at a particular rate.
