Top ten reasons not to run marathons: http://www.arthurdevany.com/2005/08/top_ten_reasons.html
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=733166
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=783074
Summary: 100,000+ person study found that men who ran two or more marathons per year were 41 percent less likely to suffer from high blood pressure, 32 percent less likely to have high cholesterol, and 87 percent less likely to be diabetic than non-marathoners. Those who ran only one marathon every two to five years also had significantly lower risk for these conditions than non-marathoners.
Other studies link long-distance cardio with neurogenesis, increased life expectancy, and more.
Compared to whom? Serious racquet sport competitors? Power lifters? No, compared to couch potatoes with lousy diets. Well no shit. That's not the point.
In terms of life expectancy, endurance athletes such as marathoners and cross-country skiers live about 2 years longer than sprinters, 4 years longer than power lifters and 6 years longer than the general populace.
http://www.mdconsult.com/das/citation/body/163630869-2/jorg=...
Why didn't they just look at dead olympic athletes? That would be an interesting and potentially worthwhile study. Actually, I know why: that study would have been hard work whereas for this garbage all they had to do was plug a canned data set into some silly unverified pharma model they tweaked for their own agenda.
http://www.theheart.org/article/243897.do
Endurance sports can mess up your heart rhythm.
Here's the first google result for "runners die young": http://eurheartj.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/ehn273v1.pdf
"The current report demonstrates a high prevalence of advanced coronary atherosclerosis and myocardial scar formation in see- mingly healthy marathon runners aged >50 years."
From your links: "Heidbüchel's study included only a small, highly selective population of endurance athletes, predominantly cyclists, who engage in a particular type of strain, with preexisting arrhythmias."
So even when you specifically searched for "runners die young", it came back with a paper that states that marathon running is part of a healthy lifestyle and then goes on to talk about possible risks for those who race without sufficient training or who are trying to undo decades of unhealthy living. Over half of the participants were former smokers. The paper does not in any way claim that "endurance sports can mess up your heart rhythm" nor is the quotation you took out of context representative. In fact, it said:
"Marathon running is part of a healthy lifestyle. There is overwhelming evidence for the cardiovascular protective effects of physical activity."
What is it with this? What ax to grind is so important that it's worth posting misleading, disingenuous summaries of research you find by googling for your already chosen conclusion? As I asked last time, Can you refer me to any peer-reviewed research linking sprint training or weight training with equal or greater benefit in any of the health indicators that Paul Williams's 100,000 person study found distance running improved?
I don't have an ax to grind. I literally don't want people trying to get in shape to waste large amounts of time and hurt their knees and so on doing long distance running when it is so much inferior for losing weight and maintaining fitness. I want to steer them in the right direction. They will have so much more success training in other ways.
It is common knowledge at this point that interval training, sprints, and properly done strength training produce all the same cardiovascular health benefits as distance training but without the repetitive stress and other physiological stresses of long distance. Also without the huge time investment. Also with much better body fat percentage measurements. You can use google as well as I can.
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/05/for-heart-health-sp...
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/health-news/2008/11/01/sho...
The studies I've referred you to are the largest, the most rigorous that have ever been done to date on the topic. They are not "observational garbage".
>You can use google as well as I can.
Well, that's the thing. My knowledge comes from readining actual journals and having doctors in the family who can interpret them. You're the one googling "runners die young". In fact, the actual study behind your NYT link paints a different picture than the NYT article did. See the conclusion:
"We conclude that SIT is a time-efficient strategy to elicit improvements in peripheral vascular structure and function that are comparable to ET. However, alterations in central artery distensibility may require a longer training stimuli and/or greater initial vascular stiffness than observed in this group of healthy subjects."
I repeat, Can you refer me to any peer-reviewed research linking sprint training or weight training with equal or greater benefit in any of the health indicators that Paul Williams's 100,000 person study found distance running improved? I seriously doubt it, because I've scoured every journal I have access to for comparative studies, and every one of those studies found greater longevity and fewer lifestyle diseases in endurance athletes than in speed or power athletes.
Do share.
I hope you know what I mean by observational and understand how it's a worthless way to develop understanding. It's for forming hypotheses.
Resistance training reverses aging in muscles: http://www.plosone.org/article/fetchArticle.action?articleUR...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/edinburgh_and_ea...
Short bursts of intense exercise every few days could dramatically cut the risk of Type 2 diabetes and heart disease, according to an expert.
"If we can get people in their 20s, 30s and 40s doing these exercises twice a week then it could have a very dramatic effect on the future prevalence of diabetes."
Strong people live longest (I post this despite acknowledging it is also model derived garbage): Jonatan R. Ruiz and his co-authors tested more than 8,000 subjects aged 20 to 80 for muscular strength. They grouped individuals into three categories of strength and found that the age-adjusted risk of cancer was 17.5 per thousand in the weakest group, 11.0 in the middle group, and 10.3 in the strongest group. The weaker groups also had higher blood pressure, higher cholesterol, more cardiovascular disease, and more of them had diabetes. (Cancer Epidemiological Biomarkers Prevention 2009;18(5):1468–76).
>the actual study behind your NYT link paints a different picture than the NYT article did
No, it incidentally raised a question, just as the previous link about heart rhythm problems in cyclists raised a much more strongly indicated question about exercise induced damage.
here's why: "athletic" folks in my mind are those who play running sports such as frisbee, soccer or bball. Even just pickup, which is low stress and to some extent low motivation, require stamina of 1-2 hrs. Athletic folks are comfortable going on half hour runs a few times a week. Quadrupling that running time to 2 hrs is a small matter of stamina and psychology. Assuming you're not running a half marathon to win, there's no need for physical destruction.
i'll happily play frisbee for 2 hrs (with water breaks, hard sprints and down time on the line), but get bored running. training for a half-marathon was a great experience mostly because of the mental zen aspect. you get into a zone...it's wonderful. i'd come home, lie down for a bit, eat a great breakfast, and do some excellent coding.
running in the half-marathon was exhilerating. there are so many people, and there's such a great sense of accomplishment afterward. having the goal of running a race--however long--is excellent motivation, too.
(the link you provided contains so many questionable methodologies and conclusions that i can't take it seriously)