Associations of Handgrip Strength, Walking Pace, and Genetic Risks With Incident Arrhythmias

He, P, Ye, Z, Liu, M, Zhang, Y, Zhou, C, Zhang, Y, Yang, S, and Qin, X. Associations of handgrip strength, walking pace, and genetic risks with incident arrhythmias. J Strength Cond Res 39(4): e589-e597, 2025-We quantified the associations of handgrip strength and walking pace with incident arrhythmias using Cox proportional hazards models with hazards ratios (HRs). The study included 487,673 subjects, with an average age of 56.4 years, 54.8% female, and free of baseline arrhythmias from the UK Biobank prospective study. Handgrip strength was assessed by a dynamometer. Low handgrip strength was defined as less than 27 kg in men and 16 kg in women. Walking pace was self-reported as slow, average, or brisk. The arrhythmia categories involved incident atrial fibrillation (AF), incident ventricular arrhythmias, and incident bradyarrhythmia, respectively. Over a median follow-up duration of 12.4 years, 28,967 (5.9%), 4,061 (0.8%), and 11,741 (2.4%) subjects developed incident AF, incident ventricular arrhythmias, and incident bradyarrhythmia, respectively. Compared with those with low handgrip strength, the adjusted HRs (95% confidence interval [CI]) of incident AF, ventricular arrhythmias, and bradyarrhythmia in subjects with normal handgrip strength were 0.76 (95% CI: 0.73.-0.79), 0.75 (95% CI: 0.67.-0.84), and 0.80 (95% CI: 0.74.-0.85), respectively. Compared with those with a slow walking pace, subjects with a brisk walking pace had significantly lower risks of incident AF (HR, 0.56; 95% CI: 0.53.-0.58), ventricular arrhythmias (HR, 0.52; 95% CI: 0.45.-0.59), and bradyarrhythmia (HR, 0.63; 95% CI: 0.59.-0.68). In addition, the inverse associations of handgrip strength and walking pace with AF were significantly stronger among those with a lower genetic risk of AF (both p interaction <0.001). In conclusion, handgrip strength and walking pace were inversely associated with incident arrhythmias. The inverse associations for incident AF were stronger in those with a lower genetic risk of AF.