Athletes can have heart problems too

THERE'S no doubt that exercise benefits your cardiovascular health and pretty much every other part of your body. Just like your quad or your bicep responds to training, putting your cardiac muscle under controlled stress allows it to adapt and strengthen, becoming more powerful and efficient.

But when you train hard for years, your heart undergoes more significant changes to adapt to the load, consequences experts sometimes refer to as "athlete's heart".

The long-term implications aren't completely understood. Some research suggests the link between training and heart disease risk is more of a U-shaped curve than a declining slope. In other words, your odds of heart trouble decline as you go from sedentary to moderately active. But when you work your heart vigorously for hours a day, your risk may start to rise again.