Welcome to the Get Fit Guys' quick and dirty tips to slim down and shape up.

My name is Ben Greenfield, and I'm the Get Fit Guy.

In today's episode, we're going to be talking about heart palpitations, and whether

heart palpitations during exercise are normal.

Now, this topic may seem somewhat familiar because in last week's episode, episode number 231,

you learned about whether exercise can actually make you live longer

and how much exercise is enough for optimal longevity benefits.

Well, in today's episode, like I mentioned, we're going to look at another critical component of exercise,

especially related to longevity, your heart, and specifically whether you need to be concerned about

heart palpitations during exercise.

A new study has actually found that many athletes have electrical heart issues, but these issues

may not actually be meaningful from a cardiac risk standpoint.

The study looked at the criteria for interpretation of electrocardiograms, also known as

ECGs, of people's hearts, and noted that an increasing number of sporting bodies report

unacceptably high levels of false positive ECGs in pre-participation cardiac screening.

This means that athletes and fitness enthusiasts who have electrical abnormalities in their heart

during exercise may be actually experiencing something that's kind of normal for an athlete

and doesn't necessarily reflect a serious cardiac pathology, including a PVC. And while a PVC may sound

like something out of a science fiction novel or a do-it-yourself household plumbing guide, it actually

stands for premature ventricular contraction. And here's how it works. Every time your heart squeezes

blood out to the rest of your body, it requires an electrical impulse. In a normal

electrical conduction, impulses originate from an area in the top right corner of your heart known as

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