Are high mileage and competitive racing bad for you?

[Tom]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323330604578145462264024472.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

[Jake Krong]

Its so frusturating how media outlets completely spin these studies... and how the researchers are using statistical tricks to push their agenda.

Read Alex Hutchinson's post - http://www.runnersworld.com/health/too-much-running-myth-rises-again

Here's an excerpt from his post...

But here, from the actual abstract, is the part they never mention:

Cox regression was used to quantify the association between running and mortality after adjusting for baseline age, sex, examination year, body mass index, current smoking, heavy alcohol drinking, hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, parental CVD, and levels of other physical activities.

What this means is that they used statistical methods to effectively "equalize" everyone's weight, blood pressure, cholesterol, and so on. But this is absurd when you think about it. Why do we think running is good for health? In part because it plays a role in reducing weight, blood pressure, cholesterol, and so on (for more details, see my earlier blog entry). They're effectively saying, "If we ignore the known health benefits of greater amounts of aerobic exercise, then greater amounts of aerobic exercise don't have any health benefits."

[Tom]

Thanks for posting the RW rebuttal Jake.  I didn't read it too closely but the general idea that for optimal fitness around 1 hour a day exercise will get you there sounds about right.  Also pointing out that somewhat more than 1 hour a day is not necessarily bad but we don't really have enough data to say for sure where the point of doing-more-bad-than-good occurs.  I would imagine that threshold could vary significantly from one runner to the next.  Just gotta listen your body closely and maybe get a physical every so often.

I'm still curious about the research suggesting that doing lots of racing and super-high-intensity running is bad for the heart long-term. Any thoughts about this? Is it best to race sparingly and cut back on the killer workouts that push the HR up to near the max?  I know personally I'm partial to the long tempo runs over the shorter/faster track stuff and seem to get more bang for my buck by mostly staying away from the V02 max workouts.  But that could just be my 48 yr old body talking    .

[Jake Krong]

I think what gets me fired up is that like 70% of people in the country are overweight, and then articles like this make it seem (on first glance, to the very casual observer) that its better to just be sedentary. That's the "take-home" that a lot of people get from stuff like this, unfortunately.

1 hour a day is probably a good guideline for most people, for good health. But that isn't going to cut it for optimal performance (which is obviously not necessarily the same as optimal health). It depends on what your goals are.

I totally agree w/ you that its important to listen to your body closely and get some outside feedback every once in a while. And probably as you get older, pushing the HR to the max frequently probably isn't a great idea.

[Preston]

I tend to agree with you Jake, all it does is give people an excuse to not exercise. . . "EXERCISE WILL KILL YOU!!"

[Rob Murphy]

But Jake, what about the FACT that Jim Fixx died while running? What about that?

Oh, and that Caballo Blanco dude. Have you forgot about him? Dropped dead on a run!

Actually, I kind of hope that I will check out of this life at the age of 94 or so while out on a run. Can't think of a better way to go. As long as my family doesn't shake their heads and wonder whether or not I would have made it to 100 if it weren't for all that crazy running that damaged my left ventricle.

[Sasha Pachev]

Of course, there is such thing as overdoing it. We need to understand that a competitive runner is playing with fire. So is non-competitive, of course, but the competitive does it more. He breaks down his body in his workouts in hopes that the natural recovery process will rebuild it stronger. If he miscalculates, he will damage his heart, bones, muscles, and just about everything else. Competitive runners have a type A personality, and as they get older are more at risk of misjudging the ability of their bodies to recover or the importance of adequate recovery after a particular workout.

That acknowledged with due respect, I must say that I am getting quite disgusted with the popular supposedly scientific method. Some studies just should never get published for the mere reasons of the stupidity of the question asked in it. To illustrate let me use a chess analogy. Suppose some scientist decides to measure the effect of placing a black knight on d5 on move 7 in the Sicilian defense. He can study the game statistics and come to some conclusions about how often black wins when he does it. If he studies grandmaster games, the statistics will probably lean towards more frequent wins when the knight is placed on d5 on move 7 after all. It is usually a good place for the knight, it controls a lot of squares and can cripple the opponent quite effectively from there in many positions.

However, does that mean that without thinking you should place your knight on d5 on move 7 in the Sicilian defense? Absolutely not! There are a multitude of reasons, among many - white's move 7 could have threatened a checkmate, your queen, your bishop, or may be just a pawn, and moving the knight to d5 may not cover that threat. Your opponent might have control of d5 so your knight dies for nothing if you put it there. Your opponent's move 7 could have opened a tactical possibility to win material and you need to move something else somewhere else to take advantage of that.

The problem with our scientist is that he is trying to win the game that is won by skill that comes from talent and experience with statistics. He will miserably fail. Statistics are of little help when you lack tactical sense and positional judgement. The question he is asking is idiotic. When a knight belongs on d5 you put it there. When it does not, you do not. You will not start winning more often if you blindly follow the advice to put the knight on d5 because expert so and so said it needs to be there from his research.

Chess players know how idiotic such analysis would be. At least the good ones do. Runners, however, struggle when something similar comes their way. Instead of learning tactical and positional judgement we want to rely on statistical gimmicks of some sort, we believe in some supposedly scientific study. Never mind that the scientists behind the study have never run a fast time, have never coached anyone to a fast time, have not lived past 100 years,  and have never coached anyone to live past 100 years. Their degrees bear authority and we accept their conclusions without question or any requirement to deliver results that matter.

Why? Why can we not understand that running and health are a dynamic game that is not won or lost by statistics? You need to have a feel for your body. You need to have a clue about how stress and recovery work together. You need to have a feel for what kind of stress your body can handle, what kind of stress creates the best opportunity for recovery, and what kind of recovery different foods and different sleeping arrangements can produce. Having a lab would definitely help learn those things quicker. But you will need to be in that lab yourself, you will need to get measured and understand the measurements, you will need to correlate that with how your body feels and what times you are hitting in workouts. Not somebody else. Just like in chess, there are similarities between games, but those do not matter as much as your own game, what you've got on the board in front of you. And if you cannot judge it, you will lose even with the best statistics.

[Jon Allen]

Here's my answer to your question:

No.

[Jake Krong]

Well said, Sasha. I even sort of understand your chess analogy 

Your point about how good athletes and coaches base things on "feel" is a good one. The best coaches are always a few decades ahead of the researchers. They know the things that work, even if they don't understand exactly why it works on a cellular level.

I like this post from Vern Gambetta - http://www.functionalpathtrainingblog.com/2012/11/evidence-based-peer-reviewed-does-it-matter.html

Is it evidence based? Do you have peer-reviewed research to back that up? These are questions I get constantly. I certainly understand that point of view, but coaching is about performance. I know the science, I study the research but coaching is about producing measureable results in the competitive arena. I do not know a coach who is worth their salt who will wait for peer-reviewed research to design their training programs. The ultimate validation of training is: Does it work, Does the athlete improve and Are they injury free? Science and research are important, don’t get me wrong, but in my experience they follow, they do not lead. So much of what happens in development and preparation of the athlete is not quantifiable; it is a subjective process, a nurturing to get the athlete ready. Just because you can count it or measure it does not mean it counts. Without the context the coach can provide so much of sport science research and monitoring are random numbers. Coaches and athletes lead change out of necessity to stay on top of their game. We can learn the science but we must practice the art to make our athletes better. Each has a place. Winston Churchill summed it up quite succinctly: “Science should be on tap, not on top.”

[Tom]

Thanks for the feedback guys, very good stuff.  Except maybe for Jon, I found his comments to be overly complex and hard to grasp. 

[james]

I guess the first question that I have is, How are you defining "bad for you?" Also, I guess I would ask how you are defining "high mileage and competitive racing" as well.

I was told by a coach once that my body could only really handle 2 marathons a year if I am trying to run those close to 3 hours. The amount of training it takes to get to that time is rigorous and really can wear you out.

Hopefully that 2 cents is at least helpful.

___________________
www.runmehappy.com

[David S]

Here is my favorite rebuttle on this story - from a 77 year old doctor who still rides 200 miles a week:  http://www.drmirkin.com/public/ezine120912.html

[Wieser]

The ultimate outcomes are longevity and life quality:
There is no conclusive evidence that endurance training leads to a decrease of longevity and life quality.



Enzyme release:
The role of temporarily increased heart enzymes is unclear.
Scarring:
Animal studies (rats get electro shocks)) may not be transferable to humans; rats are stressed with electro shock to be forced to run; this model does not resemble a human being who decided consciously top train for a marathon and is able to place him/herself accordingly with intervals of quality training and easy runs to recover.
Observational human studies show the occurrence of athlete hearts in elite athletes.  Studies show that elite athletes live longer than “normals” (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19574095). http://sma.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/Mortalityandlongevityofeliteathletesarticle.pdf
It seems that the overall benefit of rigorous exercise leads to increased longevity and for sure to increased life quality.

Running and Calcium plaques:
Humans: This association has not been shown in humans

Irregular heartbeats – atrial remodeling:
Human:  Study showed that marathoning in non-elites is not associated with arrhythmias http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22459307
Animal: study showed that rats with high aerobic capacity have reduced arrhythmia http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16891405
http://ajpheart.physiology.org/content/291/6/H2933.long