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Is endurance exercise really good for us?

Daqster

Just reading about Jeff Polack there (director of Above The Rim, Fresh Prince of Bel Air) who died while out jogging and it got me thinking, is endurance exercise really good for us? I remember Anthony Quinn's son died jogging also and Steve Crams brother a few years back also.

Am not referring to enjoyable leisure type ways of getting our circulation going and our hearts pumping, such as walking, slowly swimming, sex, riding a bike but more strenuous walking, stair climbing while rushing, treadmill running, exercise biking at deliberately difficult gear settings, non leisurely hiking, intense jogging, running for long periods of time etc etc.

In short: is pushing our bodies into stressful states during "exercice" actually good for us?

My guess is no, it's not.

Of all the elderly people I know, who have a good quality of life, they tend to be the type that did feck all endurance type exercising. More they type to eat well and only partake in activities that raised their heart and pumped their circulation if it was of the relaxing type, such as walking in the park, cycling, maybe a little non competitive tennis, attended the odd swinging party, a little pool swimming etc etc.

Any of my parents friends that partook in jogging, running themselves ragged on threadmills and cycling stationary bikes, in a foolish attempt at getting "fit".. all died. Yup, they're all dead I'm afraid. Every last one of them, gone to meet their maker, as their couch potatoe partners were left behind to grieve alone, no doubt passing their time listing their loved ones left lycra for Just Eat vouchers on Adverts.

Seriousily though, there was actually one Doctor back in the 60s who actually warned against jogging if you were of average fitness. something unheard of today. I think this should be more common. People pushing themselves to do activities they feel uncomfortable doing should be warned against. I remember our GAA coach telling us to keep running until we puked, perhaps he just seen An Officer and A Gentleman or something, but who knows what damage people are doing to their bodeis, that will only manifest themselves down the line, by pushing the body that hard.

So what do you reckon. Do you think endurance exercise is really good for us?

Of do you think, as I do, that people should only do what they find almost effortess and perhaps just build from there without ever stressing the body to such a degree that you are really an adrenaline junkie, not a fitness freak you think you are.

/Lies down on sofa, that's enough movement for today.

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prince of peasants

Daqster wrote: »

Of all the elderly people I know, who have a good quality of life, they tend to be the type that did feck all endurance type exercising.
/Lies down on sofa, that's enough movement for today.

They probably did feck all endurance excercise because they didnt have to. People nowadays are use to travelling everywhere by motor transport.
Back in them days a lot of people cycled or walked.

Endurance is great for the body. I run 32 miles a week. It's great, I can eat what I like and lose weight quickly because of it.

WoollyRedHat

I don't know but you make a compelling scientific arguement old chap.

entropi

Chefrio wrote: »

We may be capable of it, but it damages our bodies.

There is potential for anything you do to damage your body. Moving the wrong way while sitting/standing/whatever? You could find yourself with a prolapsed disc or other damage. Running on too hard or improper surface? Most likely going to cause joint damage over time even with appropriate footwear.

The body is tough, it can withstand a lot of punishment. Sure look at how many people make a new year resolution to join a gym, get fit/lose weight/insert goal here and most of them will be back to old habits after 12 weeks. The body is not only the physical, it comes down to strong mentality too.

Capt'n Midnight

Pen.Island wrote: »

Humans can outlast any animal through endurance. FACT.

nope, we can't compete with migratory birds or fish or marine mammals. Swifts spend most of their lives aloft - if they could figure out how to give birth in the air they would , sharks don't sleep.

But on land we are in the top ten, animals like African hunting dogs might do better than us. But at the hottest part of the day we are top dog because we are hairless and expose a smaller surface to the equatorial sun. And unlike the hunting dogs we can climb trees.

We don't have have claws or fangs. But we can also throw stones from a greater distance and more accurately than anything else. "Never bring a knife to a gun fight" Oh yeah we've been using fire for perhaps a million years. Tool use dates back earlier to about 2.5 million years the Oldowan toolkit was the original Swiss Army Knife, or perhaps 3.5 million years if it can be confirmed.

Anyone know when the first slingshot was invented ?

Like cats we are lazy opportunists. It's an energy saving behaviour so we need less food in the long run. But like cats we can be energetic if it means lunch. The big difference is in our style of hunting. Springbok will jump in the air if they see a cheetah or leopard because both can calculate the odds of an ambush relative to the fitness of the prey, it saves energy. If they see hyenas or hunting dogs then there is no prancing about , it's heads down and run like your life depended on it.

So yes we'd all capable of running marathons if we weren't so lazy.

Capt'n Midnight

Daqster wrote: »

They are in there arse. Sure, humans have done that, seen many documentaries where they followed them, but to imply that's our what we are, by design, is a nonsense. We're fruit eaters that have evolved to be eat an omnivorous diet, that's all.

Besides, even at that, not a chance we have to track animals long range to nourishes us. Nothing about humans suggest that we are made with long range tracking in mind.

We have many differences to apes

we are hairless - swimming or hunting at noon ?
we have lots of body fat - swimming or intermittent food ?
a lot of our ancestors ate shellfish

There isn't a lot of fruit out on the savannah, a lot of fruit eaters tend to climb out of trouble rather than run away

we can be very patient

Irlandczyk

This guy seems to be doing pretty well at 69...

allthedoyles

My Cardiologist disagrees completely with the OP

Radiosonde

Irlandczyk wrote: »

This guy seems to be doing pretty well at 69...

Apart from the heart attack?

Dyr

I always get a giggle out of people pointing out that we were endurance hunters a few thousand years ago

a) those buckos did'nt have much of a life expectancy so its not really a relevant argument for longevity

b) I'd bet that humans only went chasing food all day when there were no easier alternatives, we ain't dumb.

Capt'n Midnight

Bambi wrote: »

I always get a giggle out of people pointing out that we were endurance hunters a few thousand years ago

a) those buckos did'nt have much of a life expectancy so its not really a relevant argument for longevity

The bible mentions three score and ten
high infant mortality , starvation, injury and disease were the main killers. If you survive those then life expectancy wasn't much less than today. Many of the improvements recently have been involved massive intervention to keep people alive, but with a poor quality of life, in their final years. Think of how many people over seventy have had to have surgery or couldn't possible survive on their own.

Life expectancy of a forty year old person has only gone up by about five years in the last 150 years.

b) I'd bet that humans only went chasing food all day when there were no easier alternatives, we ain't dumb.

like I said we are lazy

Dilly.

Bambi wrote: »

I always get a giggle out of people pointing out that we were endurance hunters a few thousand years ago

a) those buckos did'nt have much of a life expectancy so its not really a relevant argument for Longevity.

Yeah I never understand when people reference hunter gatherers in relation to whether we should eat meat, wheat or take anti biotics etc.

ninebeanrows

I would agree it is unwise to suggest a 50-70 year old to go out and start running!

But aside from that you will be prolonging your life a lot further if you go out and do endurance exercise than not.

Obviously there are exceptions where somebody has SADS.

Irlandczyk

Radiosonde wrote: »

Apart from the heart attack?

Indeed, my bad.

Capt'n Midnight

Dilly. wrote: »

Yeah I never understand when people reference hunter gatherers in relation to whether we should eat meat, wheat or take anti biotics etc.

true

unless you are an Inuit or similar then it's unlikely that meat would have ever formed the bulk of your diet as a hunter gatherer. Even today women gather more calories than the men hunt

wheat / rice / cereals and the Harber process for fixing nitrogen are what enables most humans to day to survive

antibiotics , well we have left the golden age thanks to people who didn't take the full course and the marketing gimps who insisted on putting them in worksurfaces and hand cleaner and farmers pumping cattle full of them.

Antibiotic resistance was seen in the 1940's, only now are we restriciting the use of them. But it's too little too late since we've already bred MSRA and resistant forms of TB. Short term profit for long term health problems. I still think that some people shouldn't be given antibiotics unless they can prove they will finish the course - or should be locked up in isolation until they do.

Septicaemia will make a return

Pen.Island

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

nope, we can't compete with migratory birds or fish or marine mammals. Swifts spend most of their lives aloft - if they could figure out how to give birth in the air they would , sharks don't sleep.

But on land we are in the top ten, animals like African hunting dogs might do better than us. But at the hottest part of the day we are top dog because we are hairless and expose a smaller surface to the equatorial sun. And unlike the hunting dogs we can climb trees.

We don't have have claws or fangs. But we can also throw stones from a greater distance and more accurately than anything else. "Never bring a knife to a gun fight" Oh yeah we've been using fire for perhaps a million years. Tool use dates back earlier to about 2.5 million years the Oldowan toolkit was the original Swiss Army Knife, or perhaps 3.5 million years if it can be confirmed.

Anyone know when the first slingshot was invented ?

Like cats we are lazy opportunists. It's an energy saving behaviour so we need less food in the long run. But like cats we can be energetic if it means lunch. The big difference is in our style of hunting. Springbok will jump in the air if they see a cheetah or leopard because both can calculate the odds of an ambush relative to the fitness of the prey, it saves energy. If they see hyenas or hunting dogs then there is no prancing about , it's heads down and run like your life depended on it.

So yes we'd all capable of running marathons if we weren't so lazy.

You are wrong. You can't compare birds to humans. Birds don't need to expend energy to fly, just like a plane can travel without using fuel.

El_Dangeroso

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

true

unless you are an Inuit or similar then it's unlikely that meat would have ever formed the bulk of your diet as a hunter gatherer. Even today women gather more calories than the men hunt

Only if you follow the definition of meat in western standards. Women gather lizards and insects which are highly nutritious and high in protein. Hunter gatherers usually have very little difficulty in procuring protein.

Carbs and fats are far more desirable food sources for them precisely because they are more scarce than protein in the wild. When the Mbuti foragers are surrounded by large amounts of game, but they have no starch, they will say they "have no food."

Protein is very self-limiting, usually at a max of 30% of calories. The inuit don't even have meat as the bulk of their diet, their diet is based mostly on fat, not protein.

Wibbs

Bambi wrote: »

a) those buckos did'nt have much of a life expectancy so its not really a relevant argument for longevity

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Life expectancy of a forty year old person has only gone up by about five years in the last 150 years.

Thank you CM. I love this cavemen died young "fact". It's largely a nonsense. If they made it to 20 their chances of seeing 60-70 weren't much lower than ours and they tended reach such ages in much better health than the average person in the west. If a doctor went back in time most of his or her job would be bone setting, stitching wounds with the odd infection cropping up. Diabetes, obesity, heart disease at 40 etc would be pretty much unknown. Osteoporosis was rare too. Generally their dentition is superior too. No braces required as the dental arch developed properly. They do get cavities, but again at lower rates than modern people who have access to toothpaste and dentists. Cancer? Well environmental triggers would be lesser, but they did get it. Recently it was noted that a Neandertal male likely had and possibly died from lung cancer in his early 40's. Maybe it was environmental? After all Hunter gatherers would have breathed a lot of smoke from campfires.

b) I'd bet that humans only went chasing food all day when there were no easier alternatives, we ain't dumb.

There's something to that. Depending on the environment hunter gatherers can spend less time working to get food than the time the later farmers did.

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

the majority of that was spurts of running, then stop, then run then stop then run then stop not run for 40 miles in one go, then do it again the week after

+1 Might explain why high intensity interval training is so effective.

Daqster wrote: »

They are in there arse. Sure, humans have done that, seen many documentaries where they followed them, but to imply that's our what we are, by design, is a nonsense. We're fruit eaters that have evolved to be eat an omnivorous diet, that's all.

Nope we're not. We haven't been fruit eaters for at least 2-3 million years. The evolving shape of our ribcage and intestines show this. Early versions that would lead to us, have much more flaring ribcages and bigger bellies to accommodate longer guts to enable the breakdown of more plant fibre. Our teeth also changed. Indeed with our molars which some have suggested show a plant based diet it has been shown that the design is also very good at chewing meat. By the time we get to Homo Erectus the basic "Human" shape had arrived(from the neck down). We ate meat of various kinds(which also helped us spread through the world), add in lots of root veggies, tubers and the like*, eggs, nuts and fruit, even the odd grains and you have the basic human diet.

Besides, even at that, not a chance we have to track animals long range to nourishes us. Nothing about humans suggest that we are made with long range tracking in mind.

Actually there is. We are very designed for running/walking/tracking long distances. Far more than any other ape. We have narrow hips, long legs etc. Consider our cousins the Neandertals, they were more designed for ambush attacks, close in work. Huge explosive energy going on powering stabbing spears that would make a 44 magnum look like a bit of a scratch. They have shorter stocky short limbed bodies, with wide hips. Not much cop for running. We evolved differently, moved away from close in ambush stuff favouring long range take downs with thrown spears/arrows. The latter tactic generally means more distance tracking as it evolved in more open ecosystems. Grasslands and the like, rather than forests. Projectile weapons are not so great in deep forest. A spear is more likely to hit a tree branch before it hits the prey.

El_Dangeroso wrote:

The inuit don't even have meat as the bulk of their diet, their diet is based mostly on fat, not protein.

IIRC haven't they evolved larger livers than other populations to deal with such a diet?

That's another aspect to humans and diet. We have evolved local adaptations to local foods. One diet for one population might not be good for another. EG Dairy is grand for someone from Dublin, but not so good for someone from Mumbai.

*Veggies as we think of them now, not so much. The majority of veg at your local shop are selectively bred mutants that simply don't exist in the wild. Goes for some fruit too. Hell carrots only became orange in the early medieval.

Chefrio

Wibbs wrote: »

Thank you CM. I love this cavemen died young "fact". It's largely a nonsense. If they made it to 20 their chances of seeing 60-70 weren't much lower than ours and they tended reach such ages in much better health than the average person in the west. If a doctor went back in time most of his or her job would be bone setting, stitching wounds with the odd infection cropping up. Diabetes, obesity, heart disease at 40 etc would be pretty much unknown. Osteoporosis was rare too. Generally their dentition is superior too. No braces required as the dental arch developed properly. They do get cavities, but again at lower rates than modern people who have access to toothpaste and dentists. Cancer? Well environmental triggers would be lesser, but they did get it. Recently it was noted that a Neandertal male likely had and possibly died from lung cancer in his early 40's. Maybe it was environmental? After all Hunter gatherers would have breathed a lot of smoke from campfires.

There's something to that. Depending on the environment hunter gatherers can spend less time working to get food than the time the later farmers did.

+1 Might explain why high intensity interval training is so effective.

Nope we're not. We haven't been fruit eaters for at least 2-3 million years. The evolving shape of our ribcage and intestines show this. Early versions that would lead to us, have much more flaring ribcages and bigger bellies to accommodate longer guts to enable the breakdown of more plant fibre. Our teeth also changed. Indeed with our molars which some have suggested show a plant based diet it has been shown that the design is also very good at chewing meat. By the time we get to Homo Erectus the basic "Human" shape had arrived(from the neck down). We ate meat of various kinds(which also helped us spread through the world), add in lots of root veggies, tubers and the like*, eggs, nuts and fruit, even the odd grains and you have the basic human diet.

Actually there is. We are very designed for running/walking/tracking long distances. Far more than any other ape. We have narrow hips, long legs etc. Consider our cousins the Neandertals, they were more designed for ambush attacks, close in work. Huge explosive energy going on powering stabbing spears that would make a 44 magnum look like a bit of a scratch. They have shorter stocky short limbed bodies, with wide hips. Not much cop for running. We evolved differently, moved away from close in ambush stuff favouring long range take downs with thrown spears/arrows. The latter tactic generally means more distance tracking as it evolved in more open ecosystems. Grasslands and the like, rather than forests. Projectile weapons are not so great in deep forest. A spear is more likely to hit a tree branch before it hits the prey.

IIRC haven't they evolved larger livers than other populations to deal with such a diet?

That's another aspect to humans and diet. We have evolved local adaptations to local foods. One diet for one population might not be good for another. EG Dairy is grand for someone from Dublin, but not so good for someone from Mumbai.

*Veggies as we think of them now, not so much. The majority of veg at your local shop are selectively bred mutants that simply don't exist in the wild. Goes for some fruit too. Hell carrots only became orange in the early medieval.

So what would you suggest an Irish person should eat generally speaking for optimal health?

El_Dangeroso

Wibbs wrote: »

IIRC haven't they evolved larger livers than other populations to deal with such a diet?

That and they have massive issues with excessive bleeding due to too much omega 3 (blood thinning) and have considerable osteoporosis in pre-western contact skeletons, they are a marginal culture that are living on the very fringes of what is possible for humans to adapt to. Not really an optimal example of anything.

El_Dangeroso

Chefrio wrote: »

So what would you suggest an Irish person should eat generally speaking for optimal health?

You didn't ask me but I read an (excessively dry and academic) book called Irish food: 1500 to 1913 that goes into (mind-numbingly boring) detail about pre-famine diets in Ireland. These diets pretty much consisted of mainly potatoes and dairy with small amounts of oats, meat and greens.

The Irish of the time were remarked upon to be a 'very beautiful race', and good bone structure is indicative of good nutrition in childhood.

Potatoes are a very complete food. So if you're of Irish ancestry the answer is probably spuds and milk for the most part.

Shout Dust

El_Dangeroso wrote: »

You didn't ask me but I read an (excessively dry and academic) book called Irish food: 1500 to 1913 that goes into (mind-numbingly boring) detail about pre-famine diets in Ireland. These diets pretty much consisted of mainly potatoes and dairy with small amounts of oats, meat and greens.

The Irish of the time were remarked upon to be a 'very beautiful race', and good bone structure is indicative of good nutrition in childhood.

Potatoes are a very complete food. So if you're of Irish ancestry the answer is probably spuds and milk for the most part.

Yeah, the Irish were known to be as healthy as their counterparts living in rural England, and healthier than those living in cities in industrial England

--Kaiser--

Shout Dust wrote: »

Yeah, the Irish were known to be as healthy as their counterparts living in rural England, and healthier than those living in cities in industrial England

Because the staple food of paupers in Europe was bread. Potatoes are much better on the nutrition front than bread

Fox_In_Socks

--Kaiser-- wrote: »

Because the staple food of paupers in Europe was bread. Potatoes are much better on the nutrition front than bread

Oh but how those black poppies betrayed us in '47!

Capt'n Midnight

Pen.Island wrote: »

You are wrong. You can't compare birds to humans. Birds don't need to expend energy to fly, just like a plane can travel without using fuel.

maybe if we were talking about birds that soar , but I was talking about swifts

or look at Arctic terns averaging 70,900Km a year

mikemac1

Pen.Island wrote: »

Humans can outlast any animal through endurance. FACT.

You've never spent a day on a farm with a border collie as your sheepdog

Wibbs

El_Dangeroso wrote: »

Potatoes are a very complete food.

IIRC it's also down to the variety and the main one the Irish used was higher than average.

--Kaiser-- wrote: »

Because the staple food of paupers in Europe was bread. Potatoes are much better on the nutrition front than bread

One theory I read was this is apparently why we have a high percentage of coeliac disease in the Irish population. That reliance on spuds rather than bread for a few centuries slightly bred out our gluten tolerance.

Just my take now, but food allergies tend to be in response to proteins especially novel ones. So I'd reckon to be safe if your population hasn't had a particular protein in the local diet for a centuries it might be best to avoid it or eat little of it? EG Personally I'd avoid soy like the plague. Asians have been eating it for over two thousand years, but Irish people say have been exposed to it for less than a generation. Add in it's oestrogen type effects and no way Hosé.

Arrow.

allthedoyles wrote: »

My Cardiologist disagrees completely with the OP

Hmmm..but the fact you have a cardiologist...

allthedoyles

Arrow. wrote: »

Hmmm..but the fact you have a cardiologist...

Yes indeed , I have a cardiologist , probably because of leading a sedentary lifestyle similar to what OP is suggesting.

Am now leading an active lifestyle , and was told by Cardio to ensure the heart is given a lot of work to do at least once a week.

ScumLord

Sir Digby Chicken Caesar wrote: »

the majority of that was spurts of running, then stop, then run then stop then run then stop not run for 40 miles in one go, then do it again the week after

They wouldn't run for 50 miles, I'm not talking about persistence hunting where they follow an animal and then ran it to death when it was exhausted. The automobile is only around 100 years, before that everybody walked everywhere. We still have nomads around today throughout the planet. Humans have always travelled massive distances on a regular basis and often did it on the most meager of food, they didn't have the multivitamins and supplements of todays athletes.

Daqster wrote: »

Besides, even at that, not a chance we have to track animals long range to nourishes us. Nothing about humans suggest that we are made with long range tracking in mind.

The human is a long range animal, there's plenty of physical characteristics to support that. The fact we sweat gives us a much better heat exchange system than many of the animals on the planet, this allows us go longer and faster than many animals. The fact we walk upright is much more efficient, we have adaptations to the spine that make us particularly good at running. These adaptations took millions of years to evolve, just because you spend your evenings sitting on the couch doesn't mean the human species has adapted into a couch potato in a generation. We're still the same animal, we just have an easier lifestyle. Just about any sloth could start a fitness program and be fit as a fiddle in a year or so.

burnhardlanger

My 2c

The point of endurance training is to continually develop the aerobic system.

As a runner, trying to run aerobically is initially extremely slow and frustrating but the adage goes that you must go slow to go/get fast, which implies that the more developed the aerobic system (which takes time and patience) then the faster you can go at the same heart rate.

For example, someone running strictly at a set heart rate (e.g. at between 140 and 150 beats per minute), and is churning out 10 minute miles, should after a period be able to maintain a faster mile pace within the same heart rate zone months later.

The difficulty however is due to the extremely frustrating and slow initial weeks, runners get pissed off and start running 'faster' again because the wisdom dictates that if there is no pain, then there won't be much gain which for endurance sports is a nonsense. High Intensity workouts have their place and their importance but doing them straight away without a solidly developed aerobic base is a recipe for problems down the line particularly if someone is a couch potato who reads about high intensity training and starts doing that immediately.