Has anyone read running more than an hour or more than 20 miles per week is bad for you?

I've seen a few studies that suggest what you're saying. I've also seen hundreds of studies that say the opposite. Im not qualified to parse out which studies are well done and which arent.

My friend (who is qualified) said the handful of studies showing that longer amounts of running are bad for you are "bad science." I decided that was good enough for me.

I cant run more than 10 or 15 mpw anyway because my right Achilles is shot. I suppose it applies to other forms of exercise I am able to do, though.

The father of Aerobics, Dr. Kenneth Cooper, has stated in recent years that he used to think, based on his studies, that the more running one did the higher the fitness level. Now he has found that 15 miles a week is the maximum one should run for health benefits. Any more than this can lead to injuries. I also believe he said there is a risk of "oxidative stress" or something like that.

eytjue5 wrote:

The father of Aerobics, Dr. Kenneth Cooper, has stated in recent years that he used to think, based on his studies, that the more running one did the higher the fitness level. Now he has found that 15 miles a week is the maximum one should run for health benefits. Any more than this can lead to injuries. I also believe he said there is a risk of "oxidative stress" or something like that.

I think oxidative stress was what one of the articles was hypothesizing the shorter life span and more atherosclerotic plaque was attributable to. hmmm...I was hoping that if I just ate a lot of antioxidants rich foods that I could mitigate that...Its one of those things I read that I don't want to be true lol, as I'd like to run a faster marathon and know that mileage is a big predictor of that.

people always seek to understand. some things there is acual science behind it. for example, gravity. you can run experiements to prove gravity and find a value for the acceleration due to gravity. simple enough

but there are other things which cant be proven. this is one of those things. it honestly depends on the person and so many other variables in a persons life on whether running can or cannot help.

You could worry about a million things like these issues. Worry = stress. Too much worry is probably more dangerous than....well lots of things.

Just listen to your body and stop when it says you've done enough training.

The '20 miles a week' figure comes from a Danish study in the 70's that has been debunked numerous times.

I would think that of it's true that highe mileage types damage their health It's because they're competitive runners or competitive hobby joggers and maintaining 115lb weights - which isn't healthy in combination with constant high impact stressful exercise.

High impact? Don't think so. High mileage might cause some repetitive strain injury if you do too much. But then so could low mileage if you do too much.

But high impact? No, distance running isn't high impact.

If all of your runs are threshold and you're neglecting sleep, nutrition, the older you get, I can't imagine even 20 mpw broken down by running too hard, too often is good for you.

Even for general health, I'd like to believe 40-50 mpw, if built up to that over a period of time has health benefits. It's all about how those miles are structured on top of a lifestyle. If ya feel good, something is working, right?

train don't strain wrote:

High impact? Don't think so. High mileage might cause some repetitive strain injury if you do too much. But then so could low mileage if you do too much.

But high impact? No, distance running isn't high impact.

It is high impact you MASSIVE MORAN!

Pretty good executive review of the how much exercise studies:

https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/22/health/longevity-exercise-jampolis/index.html

My take away, do as much low intensity stuff as you want/can. Under 60 percent of MHR . The hard stuff you gotta watch . If you overdo hard running it will shorten your life.

I have been be an active runner since 1961. In the past 20 years my weekly mileage has dropped from 35 miles per week to 20. Recently I had a back operation and haven't been able to run because of the long recuperation after surgery. I told my surgeon that perhaps when full recovery returns I should no longer run. He thought that was a bad idea. He's convinced that my return to running will be better for me physically than not running. I have decided to confine myself to running on dirt, grass, and rubberized tracks as the roads might no longer be kind to my ageing body. He agreed on that. Now I just have to hope that the nerve regeneration in my foot will be sufficient to be able to run.

as someone who loves to run and do workouts and be competitive, but also do other things, I find 20 mpw to be the optimal miles.

I like to do other things, climb, golf, ski, bball so I don't want to make too much time for running b/c it zaps me the rest of the day.

a typical running week for me is

Mon - hills (4-5 miles)

tues - off

wed - track (the classic workout stuff, 5-6 miles)

thur - off

fr - off

sat - 10 miler on trails as hard/easy as I feel

I can maintain pretty good shape on this schedule. if I ever see a race I want to get serious about then I'll up the mileage 8 weeks out.

I'm a scientist but this is far from my specialty. FWIW I dug into the literature on this question a few years ago. What I found was that studies of how long you live as a function of how much you run show that lifespan increases as running volume increases and that this trend remains even when they account for other factors. On the other hand there is also an increasing body of evidence that lots of running does certain harmful things to your body including certain kinds of damage to the heart and arteries. This has led some scientists to wonder if beyond some volume these harmful effects outweigh the positive effects of running. As of when I looked at the literature (it was a few years ago now), they hadn't demonstrated this one way or the other. It's difficult to measure the role of running volumes above 30 miles per week on lifespan because so few people run that much and those who do tend to be different that the population as a whole.

My quick takeaway is that it's pretty clear that up to about 20 or 30 miles per week, more running is better. Above that, I'd say that it's pretty much untested scientifically and I don't see the question being resolved definitively any time soon.

The science of "exercise dosing" is very new and there are some people out there trying to make a name for themselves by claiming that too much (or too hard) physical activity is harmful. The studies that purport to show that there is harm in running a lot of miles or doing triathlons, etc. are very flawed because they are not able to come up with a big enough sample size for the group that is supposedly exercising too much. So, they will have a few thousand participants who are doing @15 miles a week and less than a hundred that are doing 50+ mpw. That lets factors like genetics, bad diets (there is a tendency for runners to indulge more than non-runners on the theory that if the oven is hot enough it does not matter what you put in) and other non-running factors skew the results. And probably the worst part about these studies is that they treat all runners the same and do not consider whether someone is physically well suited for distance running. The impact running 70 mpw has on someone who is 5'11" and 175 lbs is very different from someone who is 5'8" and 135 lbs. But these studies do not consider that and lump the very efficient runners with light frames in the same category as much less efficient runners with heavier frames.

There are lots of anecdotal examples of life long runners who lived long and very healthy lives. Johnny Kelley finished the Boston Marathon 58 time and was a consistent 2:30 runner for about 15 years back when that was about as fast as anyone ran the marathon in leather shoes. He lived to 97 and ran 50 mpw in his 70s. But a guy in my area who was an avid marathoner and ultra runner died in his sleep of a heart attack when he was 52.

I would say all we know right now is that there is no reason to believe that distance running is bad for you or that you will live longer if you keep your mileage under 20 mpw or whatever. You should be aware of your genetics and make sure that you do not have any cardiovascular issues that could be aggravated by running. You should also understand that distance running is a sport that is designed for people who have a very light frame. If you do not have a light frame, you need to be sure that distance running isn't causing more problems than it is solving.

You know what is really bad for you? Being fat. Obese is even worse and pretty much guaranteed to take time off your life. If you can barely exercise and keep your diet in check without being hungry all the time more power to you. I certainly can't. With this in mind, its kind of trivial whether the science says lots of running is good or bad, I like being fit and I also like not living off salad.

Wolf's Bane wrote:

You know what is really bad for you? Being fat. Obese is even worse and pretty much guaranteed to take time off your life. ...

Right, the benefits of running on health are so dramatic up to moderate amounts of running (~20mpw) that it's hard to believe that even if running more is slightly worse, that it will bad enough to negative all of the benefits. Such a study will never be done, but I bet you'd have to run upwards of 150mpw for it to be less healthy that not exercising at all.

This concept was brought up by a couple of studies done ~2014. They are far from conclusive, and I think the best interpretation of what's in the literature to date is this- there is likely continued benefit in terms of longevity up to ~20-30 miles/week. Beyond that level, continued benefits in terms of lifespan shouldn't be assumed- you are running for other gains. But the idea that running beyond this threshold is harmful in terms of longevity has not been clearly demonstrated for the typical healthy runner.

This kind of research is propogated by secret societies to keep the population out of shape so that when they take over we can’t out run the regime when they decide to take over.

Start prepping ya’ll.

Wolf's Bane wrote:

You know what is really bad for you? Being fat. Obese is even worse and pretty much guaranteed to take time off your life.

+1

If both are bad for me (I don't believe running truly is), I'm opting for running. At least I went down doing something.

Alex Honnold wrote a great article similar to this thought a few years back, comparing the risks of rock climbing to the same risks or living an unhealthy lifestyle:

"Some argued that it was immoral to risk his life, yet many Americans risk their health every day through largely avoidable diet and lifestyle choices. I was 19 when my father died from a heart attack. He was a 55-year-old college professor and had led what was by all appearances a risk-free life. But he was overweight, and heart disease runs in our family. No matter the risks we take, we always consider the end to be too soon, even though in life more than anything else quality should be more important than quantity."

Here is the like to the full article, a great read:

(I am NOT saying the risks of running are the same as rock climbing, especially how Honnold does it)

"Do not go gentle into that goodnight..."