Ridiculous Life Expectancy of Top Runners

You're on to something, old chap. This is a better post than your one about the MMA champs not being African-American (when many have been and are). Your powers of deduction grow stronger by the hour.

Surelock wrote:

You're on to something, old chap. This is a better post than your one about the MMA champs not being African-American (when many have been and are). Your powers of deduction grow stronger by the hour.

Thanks!

Coevett wrote:

Surelock wrote:

You're on to something, old chap. This is a better post than your one about the MMA champs not being African-American (when many have been and are). Your powers of deduction grow stronger by the hour.

Thanks!

So you're both statistically challenged and sarcastically challenged?

Of course, there are lots of variables not addressed, like what did they do after their running careers were over, but this is still an interesting study.

In my circle of aging friends, I've noticed a pattern. The sedentary population has greater morbidity than runners, but not much shorter LE (life expectancy), probably due to medical advances that keeps these people alive in spite of their neglect of their health.

High level senior runners who train for distance seem to have more health problems after age 60 than high level runners who drop down to the long sprints. Among my circle of older friends who are Boston Qualifiers (ie, train hard), there is a disproportionate number of diseases linked to impaired immune system. Both groups are healthier than their inactive peers.

In my opinion, all older runners should be doing some form of HIIT (after getting clearance from doctors). They should also avoid high level marathon training. It's not the race itself; it's the daily high level training that creates the risk by chronically stressing the immune system and not giving it time to recover before the next hard run.

I've seen no long term studies comparing high level HIIT seniors with high level distance runners. It would be interesting.

Here's an interesting study on HIIT with older people. It's clear from this study that HIIT has a much more positive influence on genes than less intense, lower VO2max type excercise.

The talk of life expectancy is a little misleading in the original post, as the reason that life expectancy used to be below 50 is that many more people died in the first few years of life, which greatly skewed the statistic. It does not mean that most people died at 50. Those who made it past the first few years of life still tended to live to 70ish.

800m runners tend not to be life long distance runners ie; endurance athletes. Would love to see your data on 5 and 10k Oly athletes

Life expectancy is a totally worthless made up metric.

John Utah wrote:

Life expectancy is a totally worthless made up metric.

As usual, another completely idiot contribution from Utah.

John Utah wrote:

Life expectancy is a totally worthless made up metric.

Try explaining that to a life insurance company when you apply for a policy.

Very interesting study. Thanks for the link. Looking at the full text of the study, I noticed several things worth researching further.

First, the HIIT was 4x 4min (3min recovery) on the bike. That's equivalent to 4x1000m for older runners, a classic VO2Max workout. It's no wonder this group outperformed the steady state cyclists.

Second, the weight workout was legs 2x/week and upper body 2x/week. I guess it's equivalent in time, but it's only maintenance level. They should be doing full body workouts 3x/week.

Third, it's pretty obvious from looking at the charts that older athletes might benefit even more from HIIT plus heavy weights.

I'd like to see a follow up study using more traditional definition of HIIT. I thought HIIT was defined as much shorter intervals of 20-60 seconds or 100% effort to max reps.

obvs wrote:

The talk of life expectancy is a little misleading in the original post, as the reason that life expectancy used to be below 50 is that many more people died in the first few years of life, which greatly skewed the statistic. It does not mean that most people died at 50. Those who made it past the first few years of life still tended to live to 70ish.

Yes, a little misleading but not much.

For example, my statement that : The age of deaths of the 6 medalists from 1920 and 1924 were : 79, 76, 53, 78, 85, 70

According to the following table, around that time a 20 year old could expect to live until about 65.

It was not until the 1960s that a 20 year old male could expect to live to reach 70. So these stats can hardly be dismissed as irrelevant.

1920 : Albert Hill (79)

1924 :Douglas Lowe (78)

1928 :Douglas Lowe (78)

1932 : Tommy Hampson (57)

1936 : John Woodruff (92)

1948/52 :Mal Whitfield (91)

1956 : Tom Courtney (1933 - 84 living)

1960/64 : Peter Snell (1938) 79 living)

1968 : Ralph Doubell (1945) 72 living

1972 : Dave Wottle living 67

1976 : Albert Juantoreno living 67

what a moran wrote:

John Utah wrote:

Life expectancy is a totally worthless made up metric.

As usual, another completely idiot contribution from Utah.

I’m overstating, of course. I understand the metric for actuarial tables and such. I’m taking about that metric as it’s so commonly used in the media and with governmental agencies. I believe it is manipulated to advance whatever agenda (even ratings or clicks or readership) it being pushed.

obvs wrote:

The talk of life expectancy is a little misleading in the original post, as the reason that life expectancy used to be below 50 is that many more people died in the first few years of life, which greatly skewed the statistic. It does not mean that most people died at 50. Those who made it past the first few years of life still tended to live to 70ish.

LE at age 65 is a better marker. LE @65 is currently about 82 for men and 86 for women. Non-smoking, non-obese 65-year-olds can add another 2 years to those numbers. LE @65 for non-smoking, non-overweight, college educated, white collar working, Caucasian, above median income males is about 92.

IIRC, LE @ 65 increased gradually in the 20th Century until around 2000. Thereafter, the rate of increase doubled to 1.5 years/decade and it is continuing to increase at that rate. In my opinion, this was due to breakthroughs in treating diseases of the elderly beginning in the 1980s that allowed these younger seniors to live past their normal LE in large enough numbers to affect the data.

John Utah wrote:

Life expectancy is a totally worthless made up metric.

Explain yourself, John Utah.

MurderDub wrote:

John Utah wrote:

Life expectancy is a totally worthless made up metric.

Explain yourself, John Utah.

Nix that.

John Utah wrote:

Life expectancy is a totally worthless made up metric.

Life insurance companies use LE to set policy premiums and determine payout rates on annuities. In 2016, 20.33 trillion dollars of face amount life insurance was in force in the United States alone.

XY wrote:

800m runners tend not to be life long distance runners ie; endurance athletes. Would love to see your data on 5 and 10k Oly athletes

The 5 and 10K winners featured several Soviet and African athletes, where health care wasn't up to Western standards and life expectancy was different. But it seems that on the whole, the same longer than expected lifespan can be seen.

5000m

1928 - Ville Ritola (86)

1932 - Lauri Lehtinen (64)

1936 - Gunnar Hockert - killed fighting Soviet army in Winter War

1948 - Gaston Reiff - (71)

1952 - Emil Zatopek (78)

1956 - Vladimir Kuts - killed himself in 1975

1960 - Murray Halberg - living at 84

1964 - Bob Schul - living at 80

1968 - Mohammed Gammoudi - living at 79

1972/76 - Lasse Viren - living at 68

1000m

1912 - Hannes Kolehmainen (77)

1920/28 - Paavo Nurmi (76)

1924 - Ville Ritola (86)

1932 - Janusz Kusocinski - killed in world war 2

1936 - Ilmari Salminen (83)

1948/52 - Emil Zatopek (78)

1956 - Vladimir Kuts - killed himself in 1975

1960 - Pyotr Bolotnikov (73)

1964 - Billy Mills - living at 79

1968 - Naftali Temu (57)

1972/76 - Lasse Viren - living at 68

The 6 European/American winners from 1912 - 1968 who died of natural causes all lived to at least 73 (77 if you take out the Soviet guy).

MurderDub wrote:

John Utah wrote:

Life expectancy is a totally worthless made up metric.

Explain yourself, John Utah.

I did. See above.