To say I am an fan of exercise/training would be an understatement. However there are always people who highlight the inherit risks of exercise. Perhaps they know someone who had an heart attack whilst exercising, or maybe they got injured in the gym and just don’t see the point.
You may have also remembered reading a while back on KitchenPT how if you analyse all the Marathons run in the US over the last 30 years you find something quite amazing: they have actually decreased the number of deaths that would have otherwise occurred had the roads the races were run on were open to cars! Perhaps this says more about roads and cars than it does about exercise?
But I believe there must be a ceiling to it all. I really wonder if ultra marathon runners (for example) are really doing their bodies more good than marathoners? I doubt it.
Diligent readers would have read in the article I posted on yesterday how
recent research has shown that the risk of dying from a heart attack in a triathlon is nearly double that of dying in a marathon alone.
It would be interesting to collaborate all the data available on exercise & death, and find the ‘optimal’ frequency, duration, type, volume, & intensity of training/exercise on health. I would hypothesise it is significantly lower than what many top endurance athletes are performing.
