Football and skipped heart beat...

I should start with an apology: as English is not my mother tongue, I hope you will forgive the inevitable grammatical and syntax mistakes. Anyway.

I’m a 30 years old boy and I’ve been playing football (or soccer for the American) since two months, after two or three years without any exercise. Two trainings and a game a week, so around 4-5 hours of running at a moderate-high intensity. Everything was going well: I felt tonic and could run for almost a full 90 minutes game. Great.

One week ago, after a sprint session, I was resting a bit and felt suddenly like a « drop » in my chest, followed by a strong heart beat. I didn’t really pay attention to it, but it dropped again a few moments later, and again... I instinctively checked my pulses and I could feel for the first time that a beat were missing each time I felt that drop. It ceased a few minutes later.

As I don’t really have a health anxiety history, it didn’t alarm me. Next training went fine. But yesterday, I had this very important game and right from the beginning of the warming, I could felt thoses skipped beat again. Like the last time, they didn’t appear during the exercise, but between two of them, when resting and that the heart beat was decreasing. I must say it scared me, as it was like 20 missed beats in 2 or 3 minutes, every time with this odd feeling in my chest. I was very close from not playing the game, but I still went on, and it ceased in the beginning of the game, and I didn’t feel them after the end of it.

So I will check with my GP next week, but I don’t want this to stay in my head for the whole week-end... so does anyone know if those skipped beat after exercise could be dangerous? I know having extrasystole from time to time is benign 95% of the time, but what worries me is the fact that they appear after exercising, like my heart was tired...

Nothing has changed since I start playing football again that could explain those skipped heart beat, except a shock on my shoulder that slightly cracked a rib. Someone told me it could have touched the vagus nerve but I doubt that...

Thank you if you took the time to read this, and any advise or experience would be welcomed!!

Have a nice day,

D.

Skipped beats are not dangerous 99.99% of the time.

The only time they might be dangerous is IF you also have heart disease, and they are a symptom of that particular heart disease.

It could be hundreds of different reasons.

When I had skipped beats, my Doctor told me that they were 'medically insignificant'.

That’s what I thought... but should I stop training/running for a time, so my heart can « rest »? Should I simply stop high intensity session? Thank you!D.

That's really a question for your Doctor. There could be a trivial reason for skipped beats like low electrolytes in heavy exercise sessions, but my instinct tells me it's a combination of you not being in shape yet and having anxiety.

It's probably not a bad idea to ease yourself into intense exercise though.