Unpopular opinion: it's not worth the health risks to train seriously for 20+ years

30yearsorso wrote:

an older runner wrote:

Generally an average of 1 hour of moderate training or half an hour of intense training a day.

If you run 4-5 miles a day at 8-9 min/mile pace from Monday-Friday and race a 5K on Saturday, you'll be fine. But if you train like a typical college runner with 70+ miles and 2-3 hard workouts each week, you'll almost certainly regret it if you keep doing that for 20+ years.

Hmm, been doing exactly that for 30 years or so. Still getting carded as I push 50, so I’m guessing my skin is holding up.

As to the other health conditions you associate with exercise, only the arrhythmias have any scientific literature suggesting a possible association.

Of course, I could get another cardiac MRI or confirm with an echo to see if something has changed. But that seems like an unnecessary effort to test your theory since I’m not real concerned with your medical advice as you don’t have the degree or training to qualify you.

best of luck worrying about things that won’t happen

Total fitness wrote:

As is always the way with threads like these, there are those who, stung by the “attack” on their favourite pastime respond in the manner of,

“ Well my 50+ miles a week is sure better than the guy / gal who just sits on the couch and eats junk food all day”

They always fail to realise, or at least mention that there is a spectrum of different levels between the two extremes. Somewhere on that spectrum is probably the optimum that is the best for health for most of us. It’s probably a range, but a range that can probably be described as “moderation”, just like your mother used to say…everything in moderation, and she was more than likely correct.

I’ve yet to see a centenarian interviewed about their long life and what they attribute it to, come back and say,

”Oh it was probably due to the interval session / double threshold work/ my 100 mile weeks/ my work towards beating my 10k PB.”

Never.

Some will say that they are a product of their time. When they were younger the running boom was not even a thing…it remains to be seen whether the future centenarians will be extolling the virtues of the running lifestyle, or the gym culture. Maybe they will, perhaps they won’t. At one point even doctors used to advertise cigarettes, until the evidence stacked up against them, but it took time.

Until then I personally, am inclined to play the cautious game and work with the evidence that I do have. Most centenarians and blue zoners have several recurrent themes.

1) Lots of easy activity with only a few periods of harder work. Walking a lot is a common theme, and activities like gardening and housework etc, that can be described as moderate in nature.

2) A lack of stress in their life. Hard exercise is stress. We as a species are designed to handle brief, infrequent moments of stress, that is what adrenaline is for. But it is infrequent…how often did we have to run for our lives in the past? Chronic stress isn’t good for us, even if it is stress that isn’t as intense as running from death situations. A marathon training plan is a daily dose of self inflicted stress on the body.

3) A good diet. Plus most blue zoners don’t eat that much. That is a recurring theme. They are not needing to fuel the body for an intense training program.

4) Good social connections. The cultivation of which kind of goes against the image of the lonely long distance runner.

5) A little of what you fancy. The idea of life in moderation seems to be a constant theme.

Unfortunately the jury is still out on what is the best approach. But the evidence is slowly stacking up…just as it was against cigarettes at one point. Until then we are all playing Russian roulette with our lives, as we never know if we are doing something wrong…until it is too late. For me therefore, I’d like to play that game with only one bullet loaded in the barrel ( moderation), not two or more…

Cavorty wrote:

Total fitness wrote:

As is always the way with threads like these, there are those who, stung by the “attack” on their favourite pastime respond in the manner of,

“ Well my 50+ miles a week is sure better than the guy / gal who just sits on the couch and eats junk food all day”

They always fail to realise, or at least mention that there is a spectrum of different levels between the two extremes. Somewhere on that spectrum is probably the optimum that is the best for health for most of us. It’s probably a range, but a range that can probably be described as “moderation”, just like your mother used to say…everything in moderation, and she was more than likely correct.

I’ve yet to see a centenarian interviewed about their long life and what they attribute it to, come back and say,

”Oh it was probably due to the interval session / double threshold work/ my 100 mile weeks/ my work towards beating my 10k PB.”

Never.

Some will say that they are a product of their time. When they were younger the running boom was not even a thing…it remains to be seen whether the future centenarians will be extolling the virtues of the running lifestyle, or the gym culture. Maybe they will, perhaps they won’t. At one point even doctors used to advertise cigarettes, until the evidence stacked up against them, but it took time.

Until then I personally, am inclined to play the cautious game and work with the evidence that I do have. Most centenarians and blue zoners have several recurrent themes.

1) Lots of easy activity with only a few periods of harder work. Walking a lot is a common theme, and activities like gardening and housework etc, that can be described as moderate in nature.

2) A lack of stress in their life. Hard exercise is stress. We as a species are designed to handle brief, infrequent moments of stress, that is what adrenaline is for. But it is infrequent…how often did we have to run for our lives in the past? Chronic stress isn’t good for us, even if it is stress that isn’t as intense as running from death situations. A marathon training plan is a daily dose of self inflicted stress on the body.

3) A good diet. Plus most blue zoners don’t eat that much. That is a recurring theme. They are not needing to fuel the body for an intense training program.

4) Good social connections. The cultivation of which kind of goes against the image of the lonely long distance runner.

5) A little of what you fancy. The idea of life in moderation seems to be a constant theme.

Unfortunately the jury is still out on what is the best approach. But the evidence is slowly stacking up…just as it was against cigarettes at one point. Until then we are all playing Russian roulette with our lives, as we never know if we are doing something wrong…until it is too late. For me therefore, I’d like to play that game with only one bullet loaded in the barrel ( moderation), not two or more…

As the late, great Levon Helm said "I'm not in this for my health."

Speaking purely for myself, I run because I love the process of training to compete at the best level I can. The methodology has change with age, as common sense dictates that just replicating training from 40 years ago at a slower pace doesn't cut it.

So for me, fitness is a positive side effect from doing something I love (although I don't like what I start to turn into if work or an injury sidelines me for a while). I'm training for performance not optimum fitness, but I've reached nearly 67 without negative side effects, and am focused on what I might do when I go up into the 70+ age group. For me looking forward, having some structure and purpose to my exercise, and still feeling like an "athlete" even a much slower, helps contribute to a positive mindset.

To sum up. I'm approaching my three-score years and ten, and haven't have a downside from the 50 years of enjoyment of competitive running, so if in old age I suffer a few limitations from my activities (a premise I don't totally accept), I'll consider it a good bargain.

I know some might consider this pathetic, others inspiring, but truthfully, as long as I'm happy, and I'm not doing harm to anyone else, I don't really mind.

Total fitness wrote:

Cavorty wrote:

As the late, great Levon Helm said "I'm not in this for my health."

Speaking purely for myself, I run because I love the process of training to compete at the best level I can. The methodology has change with age, as common sense dictates that just replicating training from 40 years ago at a slower pace doesn't cut it.

So for me, fitness is a positive side effect from doing something I love (although I don't like what I start to turn into if work or an injury sidelines me for a while). I'm training for performance not optimum fitness, but I've reached nearly 67 without negative side effects, and am focused on what I might do when I go up into the 70+ age group. For me looking forward, having some structure and purpose to my exercise, and still feeling like an "athlete" even a much slower, helps contribute to a positive mindset.

To sum up. I'm approaching my three-score years and ten, and haven't have a downside from the 50 years of enjoyment of competitive running, so if in old age I suffer a few limitations from my activities (a premise I don't totally accept), I'll consider it a good bargain.

I know some might consider this pathetic, others inspiring, but truthfully, as long as I'm happy, and I'm not doing harm to anyone else, I don't really mind.

Firstly I think that you failed to read the post that I wrote AFTER this one. Where I stated that I acknowledged that many on this forum were doing it for primary reasons OTHER than their health and that is fine. But that there might be a trade off with health benefits because of that.

Secondly if you are questioning what kind of person you become if you cannot train then take it from me ( I know, I’ve been there) look into exercise addiction…there is a spectrum of addiction, a range of you will, it is not necessarily an all or nothing condition.