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@moey2720 The demarcation point, officially across the medical training, is that an HR less than 60 BPM meets the definition of 'bradycardia'. But, it's not that cut 'n dried. Anyone who is male, quite fit, rested, and calm, will almost certainly have an HR near 45 BPM, sometimes much lower. When I was a younger buck, and a competitive runner, my resting HR 30 seconds after sprinting up two flights of stairs to sit on our john, the only one we had in the house, was a whopping 38 BPM. If you can believe that. So bradycardia, the official one, is only a problem if there are other things going on and if symptoms suggest the rate needs to be higher than what it reads. I have watched videos from cardiologists who say they need to lower that line to 50 BPM because 60 is too high to start fiddling with a 'low' heart rate. It's the same thing going on with blood pressure and what they feel the maxima and minima for both systolic and diastolic pressures should be in otherwise healthy people.
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@gloaming It's my understanding that the significance of bradycardia is generally tied to whether or not the person has symptoms indicating that the bradycardia is associated with a lack of perfusion in the vital organs, such as the brain. If the bradycardia is associated with light-headedness, dizziness, near syncope or syncope ( fainting), shortness of breath or other symptoms, especially when it occurs repeatedly over time, then it's likely to be considered significant. That's the main reason for the cardiac event monitors, not just recording the occurrence of arrhythmias, but also capturing a patient's response to the arrhythmias, ie, the patient indicates when he/she feels those symptoms on the monitor or on a log ( or phone app) and if those symptoms occur at the time of the bradycardia ( or other arrhythmia), they are assumed to be caused by the arrhythmia. And if the patient reports symptoms when the monitor shows no arrhythmia, they assume the heart is off the hook and the symptoms are caused by something else.
I can see where it might be more difficult to figure out if a bradycardia in an athletic person is a physiologic response to the athletic activity over time, or is pathological. I'd guess if that low heart rate drops further over time, and is causing symptoms of bradycardia, that'd be time to take it more seriously. I'd also figure that if the heart rate doesn't rise in proportion to the person's activity, leaving them symptomatic and unable to complete the activity, that's a big clue about a problem going on.
I'm hardly an athlete, but I went through progressively symptomatic bradycardia for something over two years before my doctor paid much attention to it. Part of the reason for that length of time was my fault, I'm the Queen of Denial and I minimized the problem to my family and tried to ignore it. The docs told me as long as I wasn't symptomatic and my heart rate continued to rise appropriately with activity, it was ok, and with a heart rate that spends most of its time in the 40s and low 50's I think that's pretty much the criteria for just watching and waiting instead of any intervention. For me it was after that when the symptoms became more severe and the heart rate even lower and I was diagnosed with sick sinus syndrome and received a pacemaker.
As we all know, each case is individual and results vary, but that's my experience.
As for blood pressure, I'm an old hen ( 78) and have had high blood pressure since I was a spring chicken. It's hereditary, my father had the same thing as did a couple of my siblings ( who have passed away now) and I see some of the kids are fighting high blood pressure as well. I was a little taken aback when they lowered the pressure readings in their labeling of hypertension, I mean I was HAPPY when I got readings of 135/85, anything under 140/90 was good for me and I had to fight to get that all too often. Fortunately ( and realistically) I see that my PCP has my blood pressure goal as less than 140/90, which is better for me for any number of reasons.