Patterns of resting electrocardiogram of male college track and field athletes

This study sought to determine the resting Electrocardiogram of male college Track and Field athletes, with a view to identifying electrocardiographic changes attributable to cardiac adaptations and possible differences in ECG morphologies by the athletic event. A descriptive survey design was used in the study. The population was male track and field athletes of Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, Nigeria. Eighteen athletes; track (n=10) and field (n=8), were purposively selected from the OAU Athletics team that participated in the 14th West-African Universities’ Games, held at the University of Port-Harcourt, Rivers State Nigeria in 2018. Resting ECG was recorded with a 12-lead Electrocardiograph (SCHILLER-Cardiovit AT-2 plus), blood pressure was recorded with a digital blood pressure monitor (OMRON-M6 Comfort), weight, height, and BMI were recorded with an electronic BMI scale (SECA-220). Descriptive statistic of mean and standard deviation was computed and a paired-sample t-test was used to compare the resting ECG of athletes in the two divisions. Track and field athletes had mean RR-interval, P-wave, PR-interval, QRS-interval, QT-interval, and QTc of 993.22 ± 111.51ms, 97.12 ± 10.87ms, 157.00 ± 34.34ms, 120.67 ± 58.22ms, 376.94 ± 55.34ms and 416.78 ± 46.98mm respectively. With regards to voltage, athletes had mean voltages of 0.11 ± 0.09mm, -0.98 ± 0.77mm, and 1.54 ± 0.73mm for P-wave in lead II, S in VI, and R in V5 respectively. When athletes’ ECGs in the two divisions were compared, a significant difference was only found in the RR-interval (t = -3.08; P < 0.05). The study concluded that there were no distinctive morphological differences in the resting ECG of Nigerian collegiate track and field athletes.