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Comment by jmde | Hacker News Reader

The article frames the question as a sort of strawman in some ways. Rather than ask "is running good or bad for you?" you could ask "is an alternative form of exercise, that has fewer damaging side effects, better?" For example, would you be just as well off walking, skiing, or biking? My understanding is the answer to that is even less clear.

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I don't know about that. From a pure physical health perspective (i.e. discounting convenience, cost and supposed mental health benefits), there are a bunch of exercises that are strictly superior to running. They provide all of the cardio benefits of running, but without the prevalence of joint injury when you crank up the time investment. Some good examples are swimming, biking, or using a rowing machine.

I'm a big believer in the idea that motivation trumps all other considerations when it comes to exercise though, so you should run if you like running.

biking is one of the worst exercises out there. sure you save joints, but your back, neck and possibly erection will suffer instead. Got couple of colleagues/friends who have health issues exactly because of biking.

and if you do road biking, depending on location, you are at mercy of car drivers on narrow roads. even if 99,9% are good and paying attention all the time, sooner or later someone won't. if you do other types of biking, there are other safety issues.

by all means do it if that's your thing, but don't call it super healthy, or safe. take 2 steps back - most of us sit on our a__es all days, so you go and do sport where you... sit on your a__. right.

You can stand while bicycling.

I think that's a false equivalency - sitting on the bike is not the same kind of sitting as in your office, unless you get a lot more cardio in at your desk than most of us. If you're worried about your erection (or labia), saddles with cutouts are easily available (I like Terry ones myself). And clearly cars are dangerous to runners too, who often rock reflective garments, LED blinkies, etc. much like cyclists.

It is kind of, and unfortunately it doesn't give a lot of background. For the past few years there have been a few studies suggesting that distance running (say anything past a 1/2 marathon) might actually be harmful for ones heart. As I runner I'm personally glad to have more reporting on this issue.

So, the question of "is an alternative form of exercise, that has fewer damaging side effects, better?" is an important one to ask, and better would need to have a definition around it. However, answering that question wasn't the goal of this article.

The article focuses on heart health (where on first look, I was expecting joint damage) so any high cardio exercise could lead to this, if taken to an extreme. Running probably engages this more easily since it works the whole body for longer periods.

Biking is my personal go-to exercise but it's not without its risks from traffic, pollution, or in the winter, black ice. Still, it's otherwise nonproductive commute time being made very useful.

> black ice

It doesn't get below freezing where I live so I haven't had to contend with this personally, but when my friend lived in Boston and cycled throughout the winter, he got the Finnish studded snow tires for his bike:

http://www.icebike.org/the-ultimate-guide-to-winter-bike-tir...

He said it made him feel a lot safer. (That page mentions a concern that there are failure cases related to inappropriate tire pressure that may reduce traction compared to regular tires, but it seems like they normally increase traction by a huge amount.)

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