Wall Street Journal article says running 20+ mpw is detrimental to one's health

I'd actually like to look like the Kenyan runners and average sub 5min miles. Xfit bodies don't do it for me. Xfit is like training to exercise. I'd prefer to put up a fast time that will last forever vs. mastering how to rope climb.

I know guys in their 50s and 60s who train for marathons every year and they all seem pretty healthy.

If you're going to reference correlation != causation, you should probably also know that the plural of anecdote is not data.

Xfitguy_the_real_one_1 wrote:

This is not news to WELL INFORMED people. Look at all the marathon runners, does this look healthy to you:

http://news.adventist.org/images/uploads/images/abel-running-web.jpg

They have virtually no arms, no leg muscles, no nottin. They have slogged every single last muscle out of their body.

If you want to be fit and healthy, go to the GYM. Lift heavy, lift often, eat a lot of protein.

Then, you can look like this:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_icAoiyE7Uk/UADRm6iH6dI/AAAAAAAAEps/tRvyDIr_vd0/s1600/Rich_Froning_CrossFit_Games_2012.JPG

Trick question: which of the individuals might be healthier? If you can't answer that question, ask your wife.

yeah, they do look healthy. that is what people of their culture look like normally whether they run a ton or not. its genetics. now dont go calling me racist, im talking from my experiences visiting africa. everyone where i visited is thin like that. so yes, they do look healthy.

this is just stuff written by people looking to have an excuse to not be more fit. i had some woman try and convince me that EXERCISE IN GENERAL was a bad thing for women over 50!

also, true athletes dont give a muthaph*ck if trying to be the best you can be means you have sore knees when you are 75, or maybe you die at 89 instead of 90. the point is to try and see what your limits are. runners who run all their lives get to see that, crossfit goons basically become mediocre at a bunch of different types of general exercise, and would be crushed in any individual event by any real athletes. if thats your thing, cool. competitive runners know more than most about pushing to the limits.

all in all, i would much rather deal with the consequences of running competitively for years rather than the consequences of being a lazy piece of crap or some mediocre exercising goon.

Touche on the tautological flaws of correcting the sample for reduced weight, blood pressure and such. As a supply sider, I can say it is like correcting the effects of tax rate reductions for growth, low inflation, technological creativity et al.

If I may offer a vain reflection, with ample grains of salt on my 73rd birthday, I can attest that the more I run the healthier I get (except for occasional injuries that are not noticeably more frequent than they were in my 20s). I run around 30 miles a week (cross country skiing in the winter) and ran 13 trail and hill races this year (mostly around half marathon distance) and won my fogey age group in all but a couple, when I ran off the course or was injured. I have less health problems than I did in my teens.

Long-distance running confers few health benefits and actually undermines musculoskeletal and endocrine health. Run if you love running, but don't delude yourself into believing that your fetish is healthy.

Here's the deal yo

Perfectly put, both times! If you choose to be a runner, you envy the body type of the Kenyans. There's something awfully ironic about the comment that the other guy made, who is fitter? He's trying to tell us that 3 men that can run low 2 hours for a marathon are less healthy than a guy with some muscle?!? Hm... pretty sure the marathoners are the pinnacle of healthy.

And it's just like the quote Adele made... something about being larger and it being good for her. It's just an excuse for lazy, overweight people to continue being grumpy old sods who sit on the couch thinking of things they are jealous of to complain about.

Here's the deal yo

Perfectly put, both times! If you choose to be a runner, you envy the body type of the Kenyans. There's something awfully ironic about the comment that the other guy made, who is fitter? He's trying to tell us that 3 men that can run low 2 hours for a marathon are less healthy than a guy with some muscle?!? Hm... pretty sure the marathoners are the pinnacle of healthy.

And it's just like the quote Adele made... something about being larger and it being good for her. It's just an excuse for lazy, overweight people to continue being grumpy old sods who sit on the couch thinking of things they are jealous of to complain about.

Good rebuttal to the misleading interpretation of the study:

http://www.runnersworld.com/health/too-much-running-myth-rises-again

No weights1 wrote:

I'd actually like to look like the Kenyan runners and average sub 5min miles. Xfit bodies don't do it for me. Xfit is like training to exercise. I'd prefer to put up a fast time that will last forever vs. mastering how to rope climb.

Point taken, but I think you used a bad example. It wouldn't be a waste of time for a runner to include rope climbing.

I've studied plenty of physiology and anatomy in college. I believe that from a purely cardiac standpoint, having your heart crank at full throttle for prolonged bouts, for decades, certainly does introduce cardiac stresses the usual population rarely experiences.

Yet, we need to decide what is optimal? Saying someone is the "healthiest" Kenyan marathoner at 25 because they can run 2:05 should not inherently correlate with total life expectancy.

This individual will likely not experience negative health side effects that more sedentary, obese individuals would. So in this sense they are healthier. However compared to someone living in a box, consuming protein slurry their entire lives with ample rest and daily doctor visits, the runner probably won't live as long. The runner is indeed experiencing stresses that others do not and their heart valves and chambers will have been flapped and pumped more per year than most.

My point: why assume that a runner must live forever? Why not just allow that, yes, someone running daily may live longer than someone sedentary, but it certainly is not the path to record life expectancies. For that move to a Japanese island and consume seaweed and green tea your entire life.

Run because you love it, not to live forever.

I don't think anyone has claimed that running extends life expectancy. But I do think there's good scientific evidence that the physical benefits that running confers (e.g., increased bone density, decreased risk of type 2 diabetes, decreased risk of CAD) allows runners to maintain a higher quality of life for longer.

There's also good evidence that regular aerobic exercise improves cognitive ability at any stage of life.

Your comment is spot on. I've been reading about this for years and recall Cooper's comments. worthy of note in this new research is that the majority of those in the study pool in this research, have never really been "fit" at any sustained period in their lives.

exercise reality wrote:

Long-distance running confers few health benefits and actually undermines musculoskeletal and endocrine health. Run if you love running, but don't delude yourself into believing that your fetish is healthy.

Research?

Ha! There is always someone that believes running is bad for you...

Neil Armstrong's famous quote: "I believe that the Good Lord gave us a finite number of heartbeats and I'm damned if I'm going to use up mine running up and down a street."

I'll take scientific research over reporter research anyway!

the government wants us to think this so we wont be fit enough to survive during the revolution

It's kind of funny how every few months we read an article on how unhealthy running is (never biking or triathlons), and it's ALWAYS from the same research group. Seems like they have an ax to grind with running for some reason.

chrisbikeman wrote:

Ha! There is always someone that believes running is bad for you...

Neil Armstrong's famous quote: "I believe that the Good Lord gave us a finite number of heartbeats and I'm damned if I'm going to use up mine running up and down a street."

I'll take scientific research over reporter research anyway!

Of course Good Lord gave us a finite number of heartbeats. If he gave us an infinite number of heartbeats then we would live forever. He probably wanted to say "specific number of heartbeats". Even if this were true then runners would likely live longer as they have lower resting heart-rate.

I understand he was joking but it's such a stupidity that I can't find it funny at all.

if you think about it, runners have low resting heart rates throughout the day, they may be elevated for an hour or 2, but the overall average beats through the day are much less than a sedentary persons total beats throughout the day, not to mention the higher cholesterol of a sedentary person, theyr hearts actually work harder