Rock71

I've been trying for years to promote more mass in my bone, If only i would of known jumping jacks would help.

wphamilton

There were 13 studies about cyclists, 11 of those were cross-sectional studies comparing cyclists with active or sedentary control groups. Both male and female. I don't have any hard conclusion on it, in general or about junior cyclists. Just that there is enough data for serious concern, enough that I've altered my own regimen of exercise the past year or two.

Yeah, about that age when they've learned everything and "we" don't know anything, it's pretty hopeless for a few years.

livedarklions

Have you considered becoming a child or adolescent? See the abstract WP posted above. I believe jumping jacks would qualify as a "a simple short duration jumping activity".

Impact generally has a positive effect on bone density, it doesn't mean that it will always overcome other factors that may be causing loss of bone mass.

livedarklions

For me, I have to rely on walking as my primary impact exercise because anything high-impact absolutely destroys my arthritic ankles. Fortunately, I haven't had any bone density issues, which I attribute to lucky genetics. My arthritis isn't related to bone density, BTW, but rather to repeated injuries caused by a mechanical abnormality, but I digress.

superpletch

get off your butt and go with him

100 miles is not a lot for a 13 year old kid.

I would be more concerned with the boys safety by himself potentially 50 miles from home or going DOWN 2-3 mile 7% grade.

don't produce more snowflakes

wolfchild

Good nutrition and resistance training prevents low bone density. Most cyclists fail to follow good nutrition and fail to cross-train and do a variety of weight bearing activities, that's why they end up with low bone density. Walking isn't enough, you need to put some stress on your body by doing some weightlifting in order to increase bone density.

aclinjury

First of all, how do you come to the conclusion that most cyclists fail to follow good nutrition?? The cyclists that are obsessed with training and performance are often eat a good diet. Most of the pro cyclists eat a good diet.
Secondly, the sort of cyclists that tend to suffer from bone density issue are the ones who trains a lot (16-18+ hours/wk) don't have the time nor energy left to do cross-training in any meaningful way. Understand that a pro cyclist, in a span of 7 months of a racing season, can decrease his bone density to a level that is considered pre-osteoporosis! He would rebuild some bone density back during the offseason, but then goes thru the whole cycle again for the upcoming racing season. Chris Boardman had to retire early precisely because of this issue. His doctor said he has lost too much bone mass and he had to take some hormones to build it up, but taking hormones would mean he couldn't compete anymore due to WADA regulation.

aclinjury

And there is plenty of evidence from pro male cyclists suffering from bone density issue to the point that they would need to undergo hormone therapy. See Chris Boardman. As to "biking isn't going to hurt them", this depends on how you see as "hurting them". The hurt may not be a physical one. But physiological it may be hurting their body slowly but we just don't realize it yet due to a lack of study of young boys. The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Without knowing further detail of the training regime of the boy, t's hard to say anything. However, the attitude of "oh he's a young boy so his body can take anything" is just plain stupid.

wolfchild

It just goes to show that it isn't worth it to be a pro cyclist. Pro cyclists are so obsessed with numbers that they sacrifice their health and wellbeing in the name of performance.

manapua_man

You can say this about basically all pro athletes.


That said, as long as the kid is getting some exposure to other sports and gets regular checkups (like people should anyway) I don't see what the big deal is. He's probably putting less strain on his body than I did doing judo and kendo up through university.

livedarklions

[QUOTE=aclinjury;20598901 But physiological it may be hurting their body slowly but we just don't realize it yet due to a lack of study of young boys. The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Without knowing further detail of the training regime of the boy, t's hard to say anything. However, the attitude of "oh he's a young boy so his body can take anything" is just plain stupid.[/QUOTE]

Actually, the absence of evidence means that even if you knew his training regimen, it would be impossible to assess his risk. Sorry, but on the standards you're applying here, citing exceptional cases like Boardman as reason for over-caution, I'm sure I could find a reason not to let the kid do anything.
"He can take a 100 mile ride" is not saying "his body can take anything." It's saying that is nowhere as big a deal as the training regimen kids are routinely put on in competitive team sports, and if you don't think there are risks inherent in running, weight training, and tackling people, I have a bridge or 2 to sell you.

aclinjury

So far, I have not once said that it's unsafe for the kid for cycling. Have you noticed that? I'm simplying saying that there are lots of evidence of how extreme endurance can affect people's health in a bad way. And Chris Boardman is just but once anecdote. There are plenty of cases of seemingly healthy endurance athletes with hearth collapsing during an event. Please don't take the fact that just because I don't mention those other deaths mean that there is an absence of cases. The evidence and cases should be taken together when asking the question "how much is too much for a 13 yr old". Maybe it's ok, nothing to worry. Nobody really knows in this case because nobody really knows how much the boy is really exercising. But to completely downplay the evidence is totally stupid.

livedarklions

Those "cases" as you call them do not constitute scientific evidence nor tell us anything about the risk. We have no way of knowing whether those people would have developed those problems if they had never engaged in endurance activities.

The OP was really someone attempting to muster "evidence" with which to confront the kid's parents. No one is saying the parents should not set limits on their own children. I'm saying that it's not the place of some lay person to criticize how these parents are or are not doing that, especially as the low likelihood that the activity in question is actually doing harm. If you know anything about the football practices they put kids through at about the same age, the described biking doesn't sound anywhere near as intense. If you want to bark at people for overtraining their kids and putting them at risk, go hang around at a high school football game.

And BTW, the absence of evidence is sometimes the evidence of absence. It depends on how hard one has looked and the nature of the thing that is supposedly present.

aclinjury

I have provided both evidence and case study my previous posts. You seem to dismiss case studies rather easily, and considering that you haven't provided any counter arguments in your dismissal and keep repeating the mantra "where is the evidence" (even though I have linked to a scientific study in one of my previous posts), I take that you have no interest in debating or providing anything substantial on a deeper level?

However, rather than debating ad nausea with you at this point, I will simply post what I've found for anyone to read and let them be the judge of the information that's out there.


1. Extreme Conditioning Programs and Exertional Rhabdomyolysis
This article doesn't specifically talks about cycling, but it raises a legit concern about excessive endurance sport. Personally, I have seen at least 2 guys who have bloody urine after a marathon. Granted cycling a century is easier than a marathon, but if one pushes the body hard enough, it will break. The question is, how much is too much.

2. Risk of arrhythmias in 52 755 long-distance cross-country skiers: a cohort study
3. And here's one medical doctor's (MD) interpretation of the above study:
Endurance Exercise and Arrhythmia: It's Time to Believe (requires a free registration with Medscape to access article)

To quote the conclusion from the medical doctor:
4. Excessive Exercise Habits in Marathoners as Novel Indicators of Masked Hypertension
This article suggests that your large artery is better off by you not exercising at all than by you exercising excessively.
5. The risk of marathon runners–live it up, run fast, die young?
This article presents a more mixed finding. It seems to indicate that cardio exercise is healthy, but it's the excessive cardio exercise (eg, racing a marathon) that can cause harm to the heart and large arteries.

6. Running: the risk of coronary events : Prevalence and prognostic relevance of coronary atherosclerosis in marathon runners
7. Potential Adverse Cardiovascular Effects From Excessive Endurance Exercise

This is a great article as it goes into details about the consequential effects on the heart and artery due to excessive endurance training.
This is the only article that to my knowledge has actually put a number of 1 hr/day of rigorous daily exercise as the most optimal, beyond which it can be unhealthy to the heart and cardiovascular system.

8. Sudden death while running in conditioned runners aged 40 years or over
Now this article probably is less applicable to a 13 yr old boy. However, it's still an interesting case study of "masters athletes" and they risk they could be assuming when participating in extreme endurance events. The article highlights the fact that if you're 40 yr old or older, then you best should make sure that you do have a history of hypercholesterolemia and hypertension before choosing to participate in extreme endurance event. A 13 yr old boy probably not going to have hypercholesterolemia and hypertension at this age (yet), but who knows if he's been eating a good diet or not.

9. Gesink withdraws from competition with cardiac arrhythmia
Anyone remember Robert Gesink's heart condition back in 2014? I have never heard about an update since. It's another case study that interests me. Gesink seems to be riding healthy today based on his Strava. I hope him the best of luck

10. Michael Goolaerts' death raises question as to why so many cyclists suffer heart attacks
Here's a more recent case of Michael Goolaerts during Paris-Roubaix. This was really sad for me, as I watched this live, and people thought he just overcooked a corner when he crashed. Now we know he had a heart attack. Truely sad.
Here's a quote from the article (which has been reverberated in many scientific studies):
The article also conveniently gives a long list of cyclists who died of heart attacks:


All these scientific studies and case studies did not specifically concentrate on cyclists. They are mainly about runners and skiers. Probably it's because running (and maybe skiing) is a more popular sport and thus presents more chances for science to study them. It's not like science can ethically ask a large population of cyclists to undergo extreme training and then observe the effects on the heart and artery (and hope that they don't die). So at present time, scientific evidence will have to be proxied from the running (and skiing) world. It's the best we've got. Nonetheless, there are lots of anecdotes from the cycling world. But to say "no evidence" is complete nonsense. Human physiology is still human physiology regardless if we're dealing with a runner or a cyclist.

livedarklions

Never said over-training isn't a real thing, nor that it can't hurt or even kill people. I was focusing on the concrete circumstances presented in the OP. Frankly, the level of cycling that seems to be described there did not reach anywhere near the levels of activities that are discussed in the studies. Also, as you note, it is at best questionable whether activities such as cross-training, running and cross-country skiing really are comparable to cycling, and one cannot simply say because this thing happens to people in their 40s, it means 13 year olds shouldn't ride centuries. I could go case-by-case on all the studies you posted and argue why claiming any one of them applies to the OP is quite a stretch, but life is too short.

You keep putting an argument I'm not making into my mouth. All I'm saying is that the parents of this kid are in a far better position to judge whether the kid is possibly over-training, and that the OP really shouldn't second-guess them based on his/her external observations. If you feel differently, you should definitely support haranguing parents at football games where the risks are far more evident and clear-cut.

And seriously, based on one of the studies you posted, are you really suggesting we should limit our bike rides to an hour? Slight change in CV risk is a price I'm willing to pay for the other benefits I get from extended riding.

base2 

Wow. All this back-and-forth over whether or not a 13 year old can do a century with out paying his dues.

It seems a simple matter, really. Did he work up his cardio-vascular system incrementally in a healthy manner? Given his track/field history, I'd say he is healthy & well adapted to the activity. Intrepretation: It's not that extreme so it poses no additional risk over any other activity & probably less risk than no activity at all.

If it were my kid, I'd ensure he at least got 100% RDA of calcium/magnesium & potassium from dietary sources but would advise against supplements. A glass of low sodium V8, and a spinich salad with a glass of milk would alleviate my concern...In short, if he eats right & is within his ability, why not?

I rode plenty of 30-40 mile rides on the weekends when I was a smoker at the age of 13. It's not really a big deal from a physiological stand point IMO.

aclinjury

No I'm not here to actively persuade any parent of anything on a level that is more than I'm already participating in this thread. I don't know the boy, I don't know the OP, and I don't know what the extent of the knowledge that OP knows about the boy's athletic history. And I don't know how much the boy's parents know about the science. But I wouldn't be so quick to say that his parents know what's best for him.! No way. His parents would only know this if they're an expert in this field themselves. Otherwise, they're just the OP, maybe even less knowledgeable. And even if parents do know the dangers, some parents still choose to allow their kid to participate in the danger. Case in point, highschool football (like you said). However, I do want to post what evidence science has and whatever case studies there are and anecdotes there are out there. And my main goal is to refute the casual claim of "no evidence". There is evidence. The evidence may not the gold-standard of a "controlled randomized trial" type of study (it ethically can't be since we're dealing with human lives), but evidence do exist that is still extrapolatable across human physiology to some degree. The degree of extrapolation is open to interpretation. Well I took my time to post what I think could be useful info, it's up to the readers to judge for themselves, with or without your further critique. That's the beauty of an open forum discussion like this, I don't have to persuade anyone or be a parent, all my views are posted and subjected to cross examination should anyone wants to.

Ok just one last thing I want to mention about applying studies from a different discipline. Let's say there are studies from the automobile industry concluding that a blow force of so-and-so amount to the human head would be enough to cause concussion. And now we find out that in football helmet-to-helmet contact actually produce a great force than this. Then can we conclude that based on the data from the automobile industry, kids playing football will likely going to get a concussion? Or are we to say "well since the automobile data is not data gathered on a football field, then data is completely useless?

livedarklions

Ahh, the good old days! Back in the mid-1970s, you could have been any one of about 20 of my smoking/biking friends.

manapua_man

I was following this older dude who was smoking the whole time on a century ride a few weeks ago. It was kinda impressive tbh.