Irregular activities and ectopic beats
The meaning and use of the Irregular flag
When looking at the Dashboard you may occasionally notice that an activity has a light blue dot in the centre and the tooltip shows a Regularity value of Irregular:
This indicates that Crickles has detected a short discontinuity under effort in the heart rate graph - you will usually be able to see this by eye on the Charts page for that activity.
While the occasional Irregular reading is not uncommon, Crickles analysis shows that a high frequency of such readings is strongly associated with heart rhythm issues. This analysis relies on the heart health surveys that many users completed in the past, and more recently the three questions about heart health that we ask you to complete on the Profile pop-up. We’re very grateful to all of you who have supplied this information.
The analysis can be read on this website under Research > Detecting Arrhythmia.
Mark, the Crickles cardiologist, postulated at the time of the research that it was probably explained by Irregularity being an indicator of ectopic beats, which, while themselves not uncommon, can be a precursor to heart rhythm issues. By analysing ECG data taken from sports devices to measure HRV, we have now been able to show that:
- It is possible to detect ectopic beats from such device data;
- The presence of ectopic beats on an activity is indeed strongly associated with the Crickles Irregular flag.
This new analysis is also available on this website at Research > Ectopic beats and Crickles’ Irregularity signal.
It is important to stress that Crickles is not a medical tool. A high incidence of Irregular activities does not mean that you have a heart problem and an absence of any such readings certainly does not mean that you don’t.
Cardiologist Mark gives this advice:
“I would suggest that if you do see a higher incidence of irregular activities, the first thing to do is to correlate that with symptoms – if you are noticing something too – ectopics – a strange sensation in the chest, often described as a thumping or irregularity, or if you are getting other symptoms such as chest pain, increasing shortness of breath or dizziness – then that makes it more likely you are having problems and things should be checked out. Ectopic beats can be triggered by an infection or overtraining, amongst many other causes. Sometimes, time and a temporary decrease in exercise intensity are all that is needed, but they can also be a sign of a more serious issue. Remember that ectopic beats are almost universal over the age of 50, and a low percentage (typically <1%) is not concerning if there are no other issues. Please remember that this is not a medical-grade tool. We also need to point out that not all cardiac conditions cause heart rhythm issues. If you are not feeling right, even if Crickles isn’t flagging an issue, it doesn’t mean you don’t have a problem.”