Study says you can't run too much, no such thing as over exercising.

Beware of clickbaits.

Read the actual article. It says:

On a related note, the study also looked at the potential risk of being overactive. The researchers looked at the possibility of diehard gym rats and marathoners being at risk from pushing themselves too hard, but found that there’s no link between an abundance of exercise and an early grave. Put simply, you can never get too much exercise, but it’s definitely possible to get too little.

They are not talking about injury risk. They are talking about shortened lifespan / life expectancy.

Phidippides would beg to differ.

Limes wrote:

The only way to really come to a conclusion about overtraining would be to have a similar study exclusive to those that undergo the elite-level training. Of course, it would be pretty difficult to get a good sample going for this so I don't think that's a feasible study.

The closest you'll get is the Veteran Athletes Heart Study in the UK, which is just staring to publish papers, after examining many people with MANY years of extensive running and biking under their belts, from 35 to 90-something. Some of them were pretty elite back in the day.

Exec summary is "don't stop exercising", but people who have done many hours per week for decades do have slightly different risks of certain things compared to people who exercised more moderately.

I guess it depends on who you are and what your body is designed for. You can overexercise and end up fatigued and looking emaciated. It happened to me during a heavy training cycle. My talent lies in short distance sprinting so hammering the miles and long workouts trying to make myself a 10km/HM guy wasn’t happening for me. My friends and family constantly commented on how ill I looked.

I am now focusing on keeping up my speed as I age. I still do a lot of 400/800 workouts but have since put weight on and only do longer distance races occasionally. My health and energy levels are definitely a lot better now.

This is why HIIT is such a joke.

HIIT is repeated efforts that kill someone not in shape. Otherwise known as a half-azz warmup for anyone with a shred of fitness.

THIS is what they're talking about. 99.9999999999 percent of everyone CAN'T overdo it, because they don't do anything in general! And they pay people to teach them the ways of half-azz warmup. We're doomed.

Primo Numero Uno wrote:

YMMV wrote:

You CAN actually exercise too much (most of us diehards on here have done it at some point), but the chances of the average reader overtraining are zilch. Poor-quality training (too hard, too soon, no patience) ....definitely the status quo.

Overtraining is definitely bad from a performance perspective. But it is unhealthy from an overall health perspective. I guess if it starts impacting your sleep or immune system. Not sure if it would have any impact on lifespan.

Lifespan? Who knows. But the answer to whether it is "unhealthy from an overall health perspective" is definitely yes.

HRE wrote:

Why not many replies wrote:

I thought runners would be all over this study. Something to back up our running addiction.

It seems to me that a lot of runners actually don't like to run all that much and actually prefer studies telling you to limit how much running you do.

Most runners would want to run more than what's generally recommended for health benefits, which is 150min/wk of running. (That's 18.75 miles @ 8min/mile pace.)

Of course, there are other studies that recommend high volumes.

Just Another LRC Idiot wrote:

HRE wrote:

It seems to me that a lot of runners actually don't like to run all that much and actually prefer studies telling you to limit how much running you do.

Most runners would want to run more than what's generally recommended for health benefits, which is 150min/wk of running. (That's 18.75 miles @ 8min/mile pace.)

Of course, there are other studies that recommend high volumes.

https://www.bmj.com/content/354/bmj.i3857

Sort of yes, sort of no. Most competitive runners understand that 150 minutes of running in a week isn't going to get them into any kind of competitive shape so yes, they'll want to run considerably more than that. But a lot of them really seem to like information that says doing loads of running isn't necessary. Look at the fascination so many had for Coe when he was a word beater and supposedly doing very little mileage. And even now, when he's acknowledged that he did many more miles than people believed you still see people using him as an example of why you shouldn't do big miles.

There was a thread here a week or so ago asking why in a nation of fatties where there's a terrible health crisis we (I assume that meant LR posters) discourage people from running. Many posts basically said in some form or other that running is not a good thing to do.

Well............. wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yVjD-suNKg

If she were getting enough calories & only running 1-2hours per day, then what’s the problem?

This study seems to be plastered everywhere at present and no-one seems to actually read what they studied. This study tells us nothing about exercise really. They looked at the results of ETT (exercise tolerance tests) - a diagnostic treadmill test usually used for people experiencing chest pain to determine whether or not they are experiencing angina. They exercise until they either get pain, ecg changes, suffer fatigue or reach the end of the (typically) Bruce protocol. As such, I guess you could consider it a proxy measure for cardiorespiratory fitness- but it is nowhere near as intense as a VO2 max test. The researchers then looked at the survival of the people who had these tests and compared it against their test results. So in essence it tells us about the relationship between fitness (to a pretty low level, in people that possibly weren't that well to begin with) and your survival. It gives us no indication about what impact exercise volumes/intensity have on survival. These are two very different things (think over-trained runner losing fitness despite exercising a lot/too much).

Cardiologist 55 wrote:

Then there is that cardiologist who says anything over 30km is deadly for the heart.

Don't know what to believe!

That's probably true if you're a middle-aged cat. Keep the mileage down, limit the high-intensity speedwork, do a fair amount of cross training & strength training. Run for fitness and enjoyment, not all this high-intense training & racing jazz that leaves so many injured & ill.

I am 46, run around 60km per week. Also do around 12hrs of Yoga/Pilates/Weight training/some HIT per week in the gym. 4-5 half marathons and 3 x 50km ultras per year. Am I good or do I need to worry?

Old Cat Runner wrote:

Cardiologist 55 wrote:

Then there is that cardiologist who says anything over 30km is deadly for the heart.

Don't know what to believe!

That's probably true if you're a middle-aged cat. Keep the mileage down, limit the high-intensity speedwork, do a fair amount of cross training & strength training. Run for fitness and enjoyment, not all this high-intense training & racing jazz that leaves so many injured & ill.

The extremely fit group is only 2SD above the mean, I haven't checked by I'm pretty sure that won't account for genuinely good marathon runners (sub230 men) it's still possible the are harming themselves long term

I like the cut of your jib.