I am now in my mid 60s but still go to the gym most days and concentrate on aerobic activities ie Xtrainer, concept 2 rower, stairmaster stepper and spin classes / watt bikes.

I used to be a competitive road at times, and x country runner to a decent standard, over distances such as 5k, 5M,10K,10M and half marathon until OA of the knees forced me to retire from competition and move into the gym and switch to less load bearing activities.

I started getting occasional palpitations last year and had it investigated. The ECG came out with a diagnosis of LVH (based on voltage criteria), and likely heart f ailure due to hypertension (which i don’t have). I queried the diagnosis and put forward athletes heart as an alternate diagnosis – as i am still fit, ideal weight, low resting heart rate (40-45 bpm overnight), fast heart rate recovery after interval training (approx a drop of 40+ bpm in 1 minute), and able to complete high intensity interval training, during which my HR will reach approx 95% of my known max (approx 163 bpm).

Long story short, i got a 2nd opinion which included an echocardiogram, and wearing a holter monitor for 5 days, including during a spin class. The upshot being that yes, i am more likely to have athletic heart than LVH/ Congestive heart failure.

With this in mind, the features offered by the FF x2 intrigued me, with the ECG capabilities (which pick up my palpitations when they occur) and HRV, breathing rate and heart strain monitoring – give me the confidence that what i am doing is not apparently putting any undue load on my heart.

So far, even after what felt like a tough interval session – the heart strain metric was still firmly in the blue range , while the breathing rate hit approx 46 , and HR reached 156 (about 94/95% of my max).
Same with intervals on the rower, i have not ever reached the positive or negative green range for the heart strain metric.

Similarly checking my HRV at rest, first thing in the morning for approx 5 mins, its averaging approx 35-45 ms, which would seem to be well within the expected range for a 65 year old male – and not one you would expect to get if you had LVH or some type of heart failure.