According To Experts, Here's How To Take Care Of The Heart For Athletes And Sports Activists

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JAKARTA - Heart attack is a disease that occurs when the heart muscle does not get enough blood flow. This condition requires prompt medical attention to minimize damage to the heart muscle.

Heart attacks can happen to anyone, including athletes. Although it sounds strange if athletes can have a heart attack, in fact athletes have a tendency to get heart disease too. The reason is, high activity intensity can also interfere with heart performance.

Well, to maintain the heart health of athletes, proper steps are needed. In a webinar held by the Indonesian National Sports Committee (KONI), on Thursday, July 1, with the title Healthy Hearts for Athletes & Sports Activists: Socializing the Importance of Protecting the Heart Especially for Sports Doers, one of the speakers, namely dr. Ade Median Ambari, SpJP(K), FIHA, FAsCC, explained the right way to maintain heart health.

He assessed that there are at least four aspects that athletes must pay attention to in maintaining heart health while exercising, namely Frequency, Intensity, Time, and Type, which is abbreviated as FITT.

To understand more clearly about FITT, here's a summary of VOI.

Frequency

Frequency implies training sessions or sports sessions that athletes do every week. "In heart patients, exercise sessions are carried out about 3 to 5 times per week, while for athletes, 5 to 7 times per week," said dr. Ade.

Intensity

Despite undergoing very dense training sessions, ie 5 to 7 times per week, athletes still have to determine or measure intensity. Measurement of intensity is very important in determining the heart health of athletes.

Because, if the intensity is done too high, then the burden on the heart will be very high as well. Thus, it can cause heart attacks and heart rhythm disturbances. For that, every athlete needs to really understand and know their physical abilities.

Not just talking about athletes, dr. Ade also advised the general public to simply do light and moderate intensity exercise to maintain immunity during the pandemic. Because if ordinary people exercise with heavy intensity, it could be that their immunity decreases.

Time

Generally, the ideal time for someone to exercise is around 30 minutes to 1 hour. However, athletes usually take longer to train. How to get around this, try to give a break every 30 minutes or once an hour with rest times ranging from 10 to 15 minutes. That way, the heart can also rest.

Type

In order for the three things above to be realized, "an athlete must create an appropriate sports training program so that peak exercise can be achieved," said dr. Ade. Athletes need to know how to adjust the volume and exercise program so as not to overwork the heart.

In addition to the four methods, dr. Ade again added that screening for athletes, in the form of physical examinations, history questions, and also checking via ECG needs to be done, especially for young athletes to detect heart problems that they have early on.