I'll take my chances. Go to the grocery store or any public event and witness the amount of obese people in attendance. It's staggering, talk about bad for your heart. Ever see an old obese person? Me neither.
This is silly. Of course there's a space between morbid obesity of overexercising. It's not that binary. What I'm doing right now, running 100+mpw for several months preparing for a marathon is not in any way required for my overall health and wellness. Is it actually detrimental to my health and longevity? That's a complicated question and answer. But why is that type of training not sustainable after several years without health consequences for most people? Because the body has never evolved to handle that stress long-term as a general population.
So while I enjoy that volume and intensity of training now, it won't last forever. Nor should it. But for me to say "well, look at all these morbidly obese people so therefor my training is justified" is preposterous. There's tradeoffs to everything. Using other peoples bad choices to justify your actually makes you just as illogical and misguided as them.
Yes. The data that I've seen indicates that the correlation between chronic endurance exercise and morbidity looks like a ski jump. Sedentary adults are at the top of the jump with far higher overall risks. Risk goes down substantially with even modest exercise and reaches the lowest risk around 12-30 miles/week. Then, the risk begins to increase slightly, like the lip ending of a ski jump. Yes, the risk for high mileage runners is not at the optimal lowest point, but it is far lower than the risk of a sedentary person.
Waiting for my father-in-law (whom I love dearly) to send me this article, like he does with all articles that include a "running-is-bad" statement. I always have to remind him that I do not run to live a longer life, and would much rather die a runner than live a longer life as a non-runner. I ran in HS and college to compete, ran for about a decade afterwards to remain fit, and now I just run because I love to run.
I don’t know enough, but I’d like to see a more in-depth explanation of the “minor heart damage” point. Is it along the lines of damage with training that is routinely associated with supercompensation (even though the damage wouldn’t be exactly the same sort commonly associated with resistance training for muscle hypertrophy)?
Various factors will stress and potentially damage a muscle, organ, etc. it seems to me that the crux is: what occurs afterward as a result of that? Are there associated benefits? Or at the very least, does the cause of stress not overtake the body’s ability to recover/heal?
I think it‘s fairly well known that in someone unhealthy (high blood pressure and everything about mainstream diet that lead to that), there is a hypertrophy of left ventricle. The chamber that pumps the blood, has to pump so forcefully because of high fat diet, high sodium diet, worsening atherosclerosis, etc., that heart muscle thickens. This is bad because a thick left ventricle is hard to perfuse with blood.
Ppl say that marathon runners also often have hypertrophy of left ventricle. Also not beneficial for long-term health.
That‘s quite a Romper Room explanation, but I‘m pretty sure that‘s what they are saying with „heart damage“.
I DO think the „running is bad for you“ is part of the overall strategy to confuse ppl and encourage them to make poor decisions. But nevertheless, his basic argument is about thickened left ventricle being bad.
Best to get your heart health info from an expert. Great interview with a cardiologist here, who's also a 2:30 marathoner.
He talks about the older runner (middle aged) perhaps moving to shorter efforts vs long hard tempos to ensure the heart isn't at risk. But generally, running is great for heart health if you're sensible about it.
This week’s guest is one of the most highly respected Sports Cardiologists in the world and a sub 2:30 marathoner. He is the Head of the Heart, Exercise and Research Trials Lab at St Vincent’s Institute and the Victor Chang C...
I don’t know enough, but I’d like to see a more in-depth explanation of the “minor heart damage” point. Is it along the lines of damage with training that is routinely associated with supercompensation (even though the damage wouldn’t be exactly the same sort commonly associated with resistance training for muscle hypertrophy)?
Various factors will stress and potentially damage a muscle, organ, etc. it seems to me that the crux is: what occurs afterward as a result of that? Are there associated benefits? Or at the very least, does the cause of stress not overtake the body’s ability to recover/heal?
I think it‘s fairly well known that in someone unhealthy (high blood pressure and everything about mainstream diet that lead to that), there is a hypertrophy of left ventricle. The chamber that pumps the blood, has to pump so forcefully because of high fat diet, high sodium diet, worsening atherosclerosis, etc., that heart muscle thickens. This is bad because a thick left ventricle is hard to perfuse with blood.
Ppl say that marathon runners also often have hypertrophy of left ventricle. Also not beneficial for long-term health.
That‘s quite a Romper Room explanation, but I‘m pretty sure that‘s what they are saying with „heart damage“.
I DO think the „running is bad for you“ is part of the overall strategy to confuse ppl and encourage them to make poor decisions. But nevertheless, his basic argument is about thickened left ventricle being bad.
The "study" he did involved having people run a single hard 5K, so I doubt LVH is what he's talking about.
I'm assuming he had people run the 5K and then checked a troponin (this is the lab test that is used to measure myocardial damage). Modern troponin assays are so sensitive that almost anything can elevate them, and you have to really put some thought into interpreting the number within the clinical context. You also have to look at the trend over time to make sense of the value.
Emergency departments love to check troponins on just about everyone out of abundance of caution. What we learn from this is that pretty much everyone who has undergone any kind of stress from a mild viral infection to a minor orthopedic injury will have a troponin that is somewhat above normal. Anyone who is engaging in vigorous exercise will likewise have an elevated trop. This isn't a groundbreaking finding. It's completely expected.
Regardless of whether he was checking troponin or some other lab/test, it's really not the right way to study the affect of running, as it is an intermediary rather than an actual relevant outcome. People who run might have a goal of living longer or feeling better. I guarantee there is not one runner in the world who would say "I want to minimize my troponin" if asked what they hope to achieve by running. So the relevant outcomes are things like mortality and quality of life metrics. Show me that regular runners die younger than non-runners or that they have increased clinically relevant heart disease if you want to make that point. Showing that troponin is high after a hard 5K is only relevant if you can then show that there is ultimately some morbidity or mortality outcome.
Anyone who willingly takes advice from pharma shills who's only motivation is to make you SICK so they can benefit from your misery and demise, is not making a healthy nor a rational decision.
This post was edited 20 seconds after it was posted.
Frequent marathons absolutely. To be healthy you need steady exercise, not extremes. The tip of the marathon field are for in the short term but not healthy long term.
Doubtful. The Tour de France route in the past was extremely long and tortuous. It's interesting how many professional cyclists from long ago are still alive or lived long and healthy lives. I don't see how mararhon running can be more stressful.
This is silly. Of course there's a space between morbid obesity of overexercising. It's not that binary. What I'm doing right now, running 100+mpw for several months preparing for a marathon is not in any way required for my overall health and wellness. Is it actually detrimental to my health and longevity? That's a complicated question and answer. But why is that type of training not sustainable after several years without health consequences for most people? Because the body has never evolved to handle that stress long-term as a general population.
So while I enjoy that volume and intensity of training now, it won't last forever. Nor should it. But for me to say "well, look at all these morbidly obese people so therefor my training is justified" is preposterous. There's tradeoffs to everything. Using other peoples bad choices to justify your actually makes you just as illogical and misguided as them.
Yes. The data that I've seen indicates that the correlation between chronic endurance exercise and morbidity looks like a ski jump. Sedentary adults are at the top of the jump with far higher overall risks. Risk goes down substantially with even modest exercise and reaches the lowest risk around 12-30 miles/week. Then, the risk begins to increase slightly, like the lip ending of a ski jump. Yes, the risk for high mileage runners is not at the optimal lowest point, but it is far lower than the risk of a sedentary person.
This is site dominated by hobby distance runners, so they naturally don’t want to hear that all the time they are sinking into high mileage and recovery from it is useless at the least and harmful at worst.
As for “fun”, I suspect it is at least a bit of a self delusion. I enjoy running and lifting, but there are many other things in life that I can do that are at least as much or much more satisfying. Is running really more fun than sex, time with family and friends, eating delicious food, learning new things, the arts, travel, and so many other things? I imagine high mileage running is truly the most fun thing one could be doing if they are extremely narrow in what they enjoy and/or can access.
There is a fairly well established body of academic research (e.g, https://academic.oup.com/eurheartj/article/42/28/2737/6179516) that says that endurance athletes do show high calcium buildups, making them more susceptible to heart attacks (but also to surviving them). I had a heart attack at 62, after almost 50 years of running and (at that time) just shy of 100,000 miles. No other risk factors.
I'm still running, although the heart attack really shook me at the time.
Best to get your heart health info from an expert. Great interview with a cardiologist here, who's also a 2:30 marathoner.
He talks about the older runner (middle aged) perhaps moving to shorter efforts vs long hard tempos to ensure the heart isn't at risk. But generally, running is great for heart health if you're sensible about it.
Yes. The data that I've seen indicates that the correlation between chronic endurance exercise and morbidity looks like a ski jump. Sedentary adults are at the top of the jump with far higher overall risks. Risk goes down substantially with even modest exercise and reaches the lowest risk around 12-30 miles/week. Then, the risk begins to increase slightly, like the lip ending of a ski jump. Yes, the risk for high mileage runners is not at the optimal lowest point, but it is far lower than the risk of a sedentary person.
This is site dominated by hobby distance runners, so they naturally don’t want to hear that all the time they are sinking into high mileage and recovery from it is useless at the least and harmful at worst.
As for “fun”, I suspect it is at least a bit of a self delusion. I enjoy running and lifting, but there are many other things in life that I can do that are at least as much or much more satisfying. Is running really more fun than sex, time with family and friends, eating delicious food, learning new things, the arts, travel, and so many other things? I imagine high mileage running is truly the most fun thing one could be doing if they are extremely narrow in what they enjoy and/or can access.
I enjoy running, it's something I can count on having consistently, and it gives my something measurable to work on improving. I also don't think it's worth stressing about living every aspect of my life in a perfectly optimal way.
Agree with most of this. I also wanted to add that there’s a big difference between cardiac damage (or any other tissue) from lack of blood flow (ischemia/infarction) and any other condition. You can’t just equate the two and assume that someone has a small cardiac scar after every 5k.
Your heart is a muscle, no crap it gets damaged during hard exercise. Go do some bicep curls and see if there’s muscular damage there. That’s how the muscle grows and gets stronger. This dollar store magician looking MF-er needs to get a haircut
If you have a pulse less than 60, this gets flagged by the medical profession and called: Sinus bradycardia is a heart rhythm where your heart beats slower than expected (under 60 beats per minute for adults)
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