Do You Risk Death if You Become Too Fit?

Apparently that seems to be the case for the very extreme elite athletes. Check out this video by medlife crisis.

So elite cyclists have very low resting heart rates. This drops even further when they sleep, to the tune of less than 30 beats per minute. It was said that some of these have to be hooked up to heart rate monitors when they sleep, so that they can be woken up to exercise when their heart rate drops too much.

So what happens when your heart rate drops too much?

You die.

So it sort of forms a full circle. You can’t have your heart pump too slow or too fast. The video says it best for the cyclist involved.

“During the day, he lived to ride but at night, he rode to stay alive”

As always, I prescribe everything in moderation. Not too much of anything and you probably should be fine.