Originally Posted by
terrymorse
On a subject near and dear to our hearts (literally), Sweat Science author Alex Hutchinson has just written a new article in
Outside entitled:
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There’s New Evidence on Heart Health in Endurance Athletes
After years of debate on the dangers of “too much exercise,” researchers sum up the state of current knowledge
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The concluding paragraph:
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Overall averages don’t tell the whole story, of course. Maybe running lots of ultramarathons adds a few months of life expectancy for 99 percent of us, but shortens it by a decade for an unlucky fraction of a percent who have some sort of underlying issue or genetic predisposition. That’s why this research continues to be important, in the hope that we can eventually figure out what those red flags might be. In the meantime, if you’re playing the odds, I’d suggest you keep running, swimming, and cycling to your heart’s content.
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Seems to me that you ave to take care when you get older. I loved treadmill sprinting before a gym spinning class; nice warm up, kinda gets you in the mood for the serious stuff.
Then I pulled a muscle trying to do 10mph on this treadmill.
Talked it over with another guy my age (we were both early seventies) and he said he'd given up on running. Too many injuries.
Maybe the heart, too, being a muscle, thrives on hard work, but as you get older . . . just pull back a bit. Short and sweet is best for me since I have other stuff to do anyway; there's no harm in the leisurely bike ride now and again, but when you see those hills approaching . . .how can you not attack them? It is such fun!