Does this scare you - exercise kills.

veronese68

Machoman121 wrote:

I think the heart is like any muscle it can be over used and damaged.

Isn't that Donald Trump's thinking on why exercise is bad for you? The heart has a limited number of beats so exercise is bad for you as you wear your heart out faster. Personally, whilst I'm never going to be an elite athlete I'd rather be moderately fit and healthy and enjoy life.

Alex99

Machoman121 wrote:

i've written in another forum so this might sound repetitious if you've read it elsewhere - i have a story. My uncle, a doctor - told me he had a friend come over for dinner one night and he commented how healthy and fit he looked. The friend told him he's training to run a marathon. 2 days later after a morning run, the friend slumped over his desk and passed away.

I think the heart is like any muscle it can be over used and damaged. I believe as we move on we will begin to see a pattern of heart damage from too much exercise. Sure if you're overweight exercise will do more good but for those that don't have a weight problem......then we might have to exercise with caution.

Moderation is the key - only problem is I love cycling too much.

Going forward i will try to ensure there's adequate rest between rides/exercise. Listening to your body is critical here.

There can be too much of anything. It's naive to think that hard physical effort and it's impact on your health is exempt from this. So, definitely do exercise caution and judgement. What most people want to know is, what is their limit? Where does it tip over into harmful? The issue with your example as others have pointed out, is that it isn't statistically significant, so it's not useful information. The only thing that we can take from this anecdote it is that running marathons does not protect you from death.

This is an area that is going to be very difficult to study rigorously.

fenix

But if you exercise then you can lower your Resting Heart Rate. And you spend more time not exercising than exercising.

Alex99

Veronese68 wrote:

Machoman121 wrote:

I think the heart is like any muscle it can be over used and damaged.

Isn't that Donald Trump's thinking on why exercise is bad for you? The heart has a limited number of beats so exercise is bad for you as you wear your heart out faster. Personally, whilst I'm never going to be an elite athlete I'd rather be moderately fit and healthy and enjoy life.

Mammals scale such that, in natural conditions there is a fairly well defined total number of heart beats across species. However, humans are not living under "natural" conditions and we get approximately double the number of beats. Also, I bet if you look at the total beats over a week of a person doing say, 6 hours of exercise/week, they'd be doing less beats than a sedentary person.

keef66

diy wrote:

For the born-again fit people, I think those folk carry the most risk, particularly those who've smoked. A lot of bad lifestyle choices including stress do irreversible damage. You can't take up endurance cycling as a morbidly obese person and push your heart to 200bpm, trying to haul your fat a*** up the nearest hill.

But if you did find yourself a morbidly obese ex-smoker, doing nothing would still be a riskier strategy than starting to exercise. And cycling is a pretty low impact form of exercise.

But yes, suddenly going from sofa / KFC / Call of Duty to competing in the local hill climb probably isn't going to end well...

diy wrote:

We all have to reset our goals as we get older and adjust.

Most days if I get my pants on the right way round I've already achieved 50% of my daily target

webboo

How much does it effect your life expectancy if you put them on inside out.

N0bodyOfTheGoat

Hidden in this theory that exercise kills, there probably is some truth for some people.

Like those that randomly start relatively vigorous training programs without medical advice or fitness coaches, because their google-fu tells them all they think they need to know.

When I die tomorrow, you know what killed me.

keef66

Veronese68 wrote:

Isn't that Donald Trump's thinking on why exercise is bad for you?

He thinks as well as Tweets?? :shock:

diy

Alex99 wrote:

Mammals scale such that, in natural conditions there is a fairly well defined total number of heart beats across species. However, humans are not living under "natural" conditions and we get approximately double the number of beats. Also, I bet if you look at the total beats over a week of a person doing say, 6 hours of exercise/week, they'd be doing less beats than a sedentary person.

I just did some basic sums thinking it would be a lot closer, but its actually a reasonable gap. Even with my low numbers (36-38bpm resting), on a day when I do 3 hours exercise and allowing for food and recovery rates (50-60bpm) I'm still 20% down on a person with a resting of 70bpm and nearly 60% down on a fatty with a 90bpm resting.

Chickens seem to do alright

Alex99

diy wrote:

Alex99 wrote:

Mammals scale such that, in natural conditions there is a fairly well defined total number of heart beats across species. However, humans are not living under "natural" conditions and we get approximately double the number of beats. Also, I bet if you look at the total beats over a week of a person doing say, 6 hours of exercise/week, they'd be doing less beats than a sedentary person.

I just did some basic sums thinking it would be a lot closer, but its actually a reasonable gap. Even with my low numbers (36-38bpm resting), on a day when I do 3 hours exercise and allowing for food and recovery rates (50-60bpm) I'm still 20% down on a person with a resting of 70bpm and nearly 60% down on a fatty with a 90bpm resting.

Chickens seem to do alright

Awesome. It's an amazingly tight range really.

Anyway, the conclusion is that it's not a simple 'number of beats' type issue.

Alex99

NitrousOxide wrote:

Hidden in this theory that exercise kills, there probably is some truth for some people.

Like those that randomly start relatively vigorous training programs without medical advice or fitness coaches, because their google-fu tells them all they think they need to know.

When I die tomorrow, you know what killed me.

I suspect that the type of problem that the grossly unfit experience are totally different to those of the long term endurance athlete. It's ischemic heart attacks from plaque rupture and other acute vascular events in the very unfit, vs electrical / arrhythmia issues in the endurance crowd. Basically, plumbing vs electrics.