Overdoing it? Careful now [Irish Times]

The Black Oil

Link - Is our fixation on fitness getting dangerous?

Gave this a read earlier. I don't look at running articles all that often, nor do I take part in a wide range of events. Found it interesting enough to read re the heart, muscle, etc. The middle aged cohort and iron man, or similar. Is it simply people like a challenge and are getting out there, bucket list, etc?

runnerholic

That's worrying.

JohnDozer

runnerholic wrote: »

That's worrying.

The part about not running more than 20
miles per week? Agreed

RacoonQueen

Can't read the article - must have over done my freebie Irish Times articles from this IP
But I'm going to go out on a limb here and say, this is garbage.

runnerholic

RacoonQueen wrote: »

Can't read the article - must have over done my freebie Irish Times articles from this IP
But I'm going to go out on a limb here and say, this is garbage.

An informed analysis.

Chivito550

Sprinting is the way to go folks. Ticks all the boxes in the article, plus you'll have awesome glutes and quads.

average_runner

It's a bull crap article based on maybes and 2-3% of a example size they took.

Saying ultra marathon could affect your fertility, yet all of the top ultra runners becomes mums and dads.

The heart condition affects 2-3% of the population but article doesn't say how many top athletes.

No evidence on the 30 mile thing. Does it affect footballers or gaa who cover that distance?

average_runner

RacoonQueen wrote: »

Can't read the article - must have over done my freebie Irish Times articles from this IP
But I'm going to go out on a limb here and say, this is garbage.

You're good. Spot on about it

Gavlor

I for one concur with the author.

As for sprint training??? shape throwing should be kept for electric picnic and should not be considered training

hot buttered scones

I had a quick skim - running is bad for your knees, your heart, your bones etc. I could probably find several other studies to say that it isn't. I don't think there's anything new in there.

Ayuntamiento

Just read the article out to the cardiologist in my family who basically dismissed it as mostly rubbish.
You could hardly refer to yourself as a serious endurance athlete if you're only running 20miles per week! I cover about 50 miles a week and I see myself as a total amateur.

When you compare it to the amount of illnesses that running will decrease your risk of, an increased chance of atrial fibrillation is a worthy risk.

walshb

There's 1000s of people all over Ireland who could do well by reading what I have been saying for years. Doesn't need some Irish Times journo to spell out the bleeding obvious. The benefits you think you are getting by running far too far? They are not benefits. A lot of the time they kill the benefits you gained by running. This slogging and chugging along and stupidly putting strain on your body all so that you can say you got from A to B? It's dumb, and is likely more detrimental to your overall health as opposed to beneficial.

I admire greatly the sprinters and middle distance runners. Even the 5 and 10 guys.The more slugger type I admire less.

Ayuntamiento

walshb wrote: »

There's 1000s of people all over Ireland who could do well by reading what I have been saying for years. Doesn't need some Irish Times journo to spell out the bleeding obvious. The benefits you think you are getting by running far too far? They are not benefits. A lot of the time they kill the benefits you gained by running. Thus slogging and chugging along and stupidly putting strain on your body all so that you can say you got from A to B? It's dumb, and is likely more detrimental you your overall health as opposed the beneficial.

So how much is too much in your opinion? Are you talking about a particular mileage or are you referring to not trying to push past that point when you feel burnt-out?

walshb

Ayuntamiento wrote: »

So how much is too much in your opinion? Are you talking about a particular mileage or are you referring to not trying to push past that point when you feel burnt-out?

When the body starts resenting your silly and reckless pushing of it.

Kind of like flogging a dead horse.

tang1

walshb wrote: »

Kind of like flogging a dead horse.

Bit like talking to you!!!

walshb

tang1 wrote: »

Bit like talking to you!!!

Sure you would say that. Aren't you a grinder?

tang1

walshb wrote: »

Sure you would say that. Aren't you a grinder?

Ya have me on that one I'm afraid walshy, grinder?

El Caballo

Lucia, A.; Hoffman, M. D.; Krishnan, E., Health and Exercise-Related Medical Issues among 1,212 Ultramarathon Runners: Baseline Findings from the Ultrarunners Longitudinal TRAcking (ULTRA) Study. PLoS ONE 2014, 9 (1), e83867:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3885517/

Summary
How high mileage impacts a runners’ health

The Ultrarunners Longitudinal Tracking Study, or ULTRA for short, was designed in part to help answer the question: “Is running high mileage bad for you?”

To do this, the ULTRA study will follow 1,212 ultramarathoners for a very long time, probably until the end of their lives, to see how their exercise habits affect their health.

The study was undertaken only three years ago, so the biggest question marks—the effects of high-volume running on cardiovascular health and lifespan—remain unanswered. But, there is still a lot to be learned from the preliminary survey of the health history of the ultra runners in the study.

The average participant in the study was 36 years old, confirming that most ultramarathoners (and especially the faster ones) tend to be older than your typical 5k or 10k hotshot.

Ultramarathoners are also a pretty experienced bunch, as the majority of the subjects in the study had been running for at least seven years before they competed in their first ultramarathon.

Overall, ultra runners as a whole are a pretty healthy bunch.

The study’s participants only missed 2.2 days of work or school in the last year because of injury or illness, compared to 3.7 days among the general population.
And the ultramarathoners were confined to bed only one day out of the past year because of an injury or sickness versus 4.7 days among the general population.

The ultra-runners had a low, although not nonexistent, incidence of high blood pressure and irregular heartbeats, with about 7.5 percent of the runners reporting one of those problems.

Less than 1 percent had been diagnosed with heart disease or had a past stroke, and few had experienced cancer, with basal cell skin carcinoma being the most common malignancy, occurring in 1.6 percent of the runners.

Those percentages are generally lower than among age-matched American adults, especially considering that a majority of the ultra-runners were aged 40 or older.

Even when you control for the fact that ultramarathoners tend to be better-educated and more likely to hold office jobs, these trends still hold.

Even though 77% of the runners in this study suffered a running injury during the past year, they visited the doctor less often than non-runners. And among the doctor’s visits that the runners did incur, nearly two-thirds were only because of a running-related injury.

This is not to imply that the ultramarathoners in this study were perfectly healthy.

How healthy are ultramarathoners?

As you’d expect with any decently large cross-section of the population, a handful of the subjects in the ULTRA study were diabetic, asthmatic, HIV positive, cancer patients, living with cardiovascular disease, and so on.
A total of 28% of the runners took medication for some type of medical condition.

The incidence of virtually all medical conditions was lower in the ultramarathoners than in the population as a whole.

The only two exceptions to this were asthma and allergies or hay fever. Around 13% of the ultramarathoners had exercise-induced asthma, and 25% had allergies or hay fever.

Among the general population, these numbers are 8% and 7%, respectively.

Both asthma and allergies are known to be more prevalent in endurance athletes, probably because of their increased exposure to allergens and pollutants in the air. It shouldn’t be too surprising that ultramarathoners, who inhale large volumes of whatever is in the air where they run and compete, have a higher rate of these two conditions.

Conclusion

The running habits of the subjects in the ULTRA study appear to confer some remarkable health benefits, at least in the short term.

The group as a whole averaged 2,080 miles in the past calendar year—40 miles per week—which is pretty impressive for a group of over 1,200 runners.

These ultrarunners missed fewer days of work, needed less medical care, and had a lower incidence of pretty much every serious medical condition compared to the general population. Notably, however, allergies, hay fever, and asthma are bigger concerns for the ultramarathoning community.

We’ll have to wait a while to see whether this trend of good health continues for the runners in the ULTRA study.

This is a huge ongoing study at the minute and will be going on for a long time to come but some of the observations made above.

I see some scaremongering in the article saying that people who exercise have a larger heart than the general population. Well, that's a pretty obvious observation to make when the heart is a muscle. There is nothing wrong with an athletic heart, the problem is when it is combined with other cardiac problems. Statistically, a person running a marathon has less chance of having a heart attack than the general population. It may put that person at more risk but overall compared to the non running public, the chance is much less.

What does it matter anyway, I don't wake up in the morning and think about dodging death years away, I could choke on my breakfast and it would be all over anyway. Do what you enjoy, better to burn bright than fade away.

RacoonQueen

The problem with articles like this is that people who really need to exercise more read this and take it on and use that to justify being unfit. Cardiovascular health is hugely important - for that you need to be moving.
The amount of people who have thrown crap at me over the years insinuating I run to be skinny is unreal...shows that a crazy, image obsessed world we live in because running because you enjoy it or for the health benefits can't be possible.

Ayuntamiento

Aside from cardiovascular health, the amount of people I know who have used running to help overcome issues with anxiety/depression/substance abuse, etc is incredible.
I really feel like it's slightly irresponsible for a doctor of preventative cardiology to send out such an unbalanced message about running. Although for all we know the media reporting may have shifted the emphasis away from his true message and focused in on the scare-mongering angle of his research.

I'm not sure I could quit running even if I knew it was bad for me! It becomes such a huge part of your life and identity.

Chivito550

“Extreme endurance sports will increase muscle wastage,” says Keith Begley, accredited sports psychologist with the Irish Institute of Sport and a former physical education teacher. “So if you are doing those sports it’s important you are also doing strength or resistance training to maintain muscle mass, as well as taking appropriate levels of protein.

“As you get older, you need muscle mass to maintain your strength and balance. There is a physical problem, which might not have hit these people yet, but will do when they get into their 60s or 70s. They might be burning fat and losing weight now, but a lot of the weight they’d be losing is good healthy muscle,” says Begley, who advocates endurance athletes do regular core training, including pilates, as well as resistance training such as with TRX, kettlebells and light weights.

Honestly, how many here actually do this? I'd bet very few.

I've no idea if the general attitude of the article is true or not, but to dismiss the entire article as nonsense is very close minded.

It is very true that so many non elite distance runners ignore strength work.

ooter

Aside from a five-fold increase in atrial fibrillation, O’Keefe said research shows that chronic marathon runners (that is, those who ran at least one marathon a year for the previous 25 years) have twice the coronary plaque in their arteries and twice the risk of heart attack and sudden death than sedentary people.

That bit is fairly worrying, i wouldn't have considered someone running 1 marathon a year a chronic marathon runner.

walshb

ooter wrote: »

That bit is fairly worrying, i wouldn't have considered someone running 1 marathon a year a chronic marathon runner.

25 marathons in 25 years plus all the training and running to do it. That's the point. It's a huge amount on the body. For some it won't affect them negatively. For others it will.

clickerquicklic

Everything in moderation, I think some people go to excess. I try to run every other day and recently started more resistance training and core work as I felt I needed it as was losing too much from running, there are some good points in the article . I was asking a runner recently how I could break a certain time target I had and he said you need to start running 100k a week that to me is extreme , each to there own but I think common sense should prevail .

DubOnHoliday

I use running to avoid house work. I'm never going back.

walshb

Excessive running is no different to many other addictions that can be bad for you. Too much alcohol, coffee. gambling etc etc. It's a compulsion for many to put in miles. Doesn't matter a damn how healthy or effective the miles are, just put them in. BTW, I am not talking about competing athletes.

Non athletes don't need to be doing near as much running as they do to keep healthy.

RacoonQueen

walshb wrote: »

Non athletes don't need to be doing near as much running as they do to keep healthy.

But 'non athletes' aren't only doing it to be healthy they're doing it to be the best they can be and to improve their times. Which takes miles and hard training.

walshb

RacoonQueen wrote: »

But 'non athletes' aren't only doing it to be healthy they're doing it to be the best they can be and to improve their times. Which takes miles and hard training.

I never mentioned time improvements. I mentioned keeping healthy.

hot buttered scones

It may or may not be bad for you, but I enjoy it and it certainly beats getting punched in the face repeatedly.

I'd have to concede to Chivito550's point above though about strength training - I see it as a chore and don't do nearly enough even though I know I'll see improvement if I do it. And more to the point I'm over 40, so I know I need to be doing even the minimal amount to maintain muscle mass. I got a good deal back in 2015 for one to one sessions with a guy who is also a good runner - his advice was I'd probably see more gains by dropping a day of running in favour of s+c and it's advice I should probably heed more.

Alf Veedersane

There's not a whole lot of context in the article though.

I got the impression, with the references to people taking up 'endurance'/'extreme' sports in their sports that the people worst affected would be those that go from 0-100 with no background in any sort of meaningful training at a time when their heart has less ability top adapt to the new exercise regime.

The assertion that runners are twice as likely to have a heart attack as sedentary people will be offset in another study by the health risks sedentary people are exposed to because of their sedentary lifestyle

Alf Veedersane

Chivito550 wrote: »

Honestly, how many here actually do this? I'd bet very few.

I've no idea if the general attitude of the article is true or not, but to dismiss the entire article as nonsense is very close minded.

It is very true that so many non elite distance runners ignore strength work.

I remember reading something (not sure it was a study, report or an article from an S&C coach) about triathletes and a study on the level of injuries they suffered and how a huge percentage of those could have been prevented by the right strength training. But that triathletes thought of training that wasn't swimming, running or cycling as a waste. I'd venture the same could be said of runners to some degree and in both cases not just for long term health but also short term.