"irreversible damage"
My best friend is a general surgeon and does not exercise at all, despite having been a cross country runner through college running 5Ks in the mid 15s. When I told him that a local guy I know was going to be in Louisville with me in August doing his 17th Ironman, and that I would be "competing" against him for a Kona slot, my friend replied, "After 16 Ironmans, he's done irreversible damage to his body and he's actually getting slower rather than faster. Soon, he's going to have a hard time walking, much less running."
Any opinions?
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Interesting, inflammatory comment for sure. I would like to know what he means by "irreversable damage" ? in what ways, mucular, skeletal, adrenal, organs, heart? Mental?
I am not a doc, for the record.
But context here is everything.
If this is about a friend you both know, and you both know how this friend has been performing, training, and perhaps you've observed over-training and getting injured, well then I can see how that kind of comment can come up. Heck, I could see myself flippently saying that about one of my own BFF's who has been running at 110% for several years and despite all signs she desperately needs to take a stand down start training smarter (ie, include recovery days once in a while) she's just not the kinda person who is gonna take that advice. She'll run herself into a brick wall until some day she "has a hard time walking much less running".
My friend does not know the IM athlete, but only knows of him through me. I also asked him to be specific as to what type of damage he thinks is being caused. While I do know my share of former runners who were forced to give it up due to bad knees and hips, I agree that it's a broad, ill-informed statement about athletes (mostly runners) in general.
Obviously Ironman training, despite the possibility for long-term injuries, is certainly better than a life of hypertension, high cholesterol, and diabetes. All of these things will kill you a lot quicker than arthritis. I would be interested to hear from some of the more experienced athletes out there who are still knocking it out after decades in the sport. Here in Lexington we have Susan Bradley-Cox who will be inducted into the triathlon hall of fame along with Dave Scott in January. She's 73 and still going strong.
It's a broad assumption, yes, and one that I'm always amazed at how prevalent it is in society. I have so many people come through my doors saying "I MUST have arthritis because I'm active" or who tell me that "I'll pay for my training later", be struck down by the arthritis gods, etc etc.
I look at it this way- Bodies are like cars. If you take care of them, they'll last forever. If you don't, eventually they'll rust and parts will break. I think the disconnect is that people don't realize how much of a role they actually play in that process. Bones and joints break down because the muscles/tendons that move them stiffen up. When that happens, the space that they normally provide the joint disappears. That's normal with any kind of repetitive or high activity level. Steps need to be taken to prevent that stiffening, and unfortunately for athletes- this does not mean more exercise. It means working on range of motion and flexibility and making sure your muscle strength is even on all sides of the joint, not just the ones that make you bike/run faster. The problem with wear and tear is that it's quiet and doesn't hurt until the damage is done. You can blame your mom and dad all you want for crappy genetics but at the end of the day, the fact that you couldn't touch your toes for the last 40 years should have been addressed.
"You can blame your mom and dad all you want for crappy genetics but at the end of the day, the fact that you couldn't touch your toes for the last 40 years should have been addressed"
Ha! True. I think it's tempting to think of knees like running shoes or something - once they go through the Good Housekeeping test of 10,000 uses, you gotta replace them. But bodies are a bit more complex than a set of Nikes. Also, there have been recent studies that shows that runners are no more prone to osteoarthritis than non-runners. Furthermore, as someone with rheumatoid arthritis, I can say that physical exercise decreases symptoms by working the joints through their ROM and increasing blood flow to flush out inflammation.
If anyone can claim to say they know what the direct causes of arthritis are, then they know more than the bulk of medical peer reviewed research, which knows which factors are correlated with it. There's no evidence that prolonged marathoning, for example, causes arthritis (because there are examples of people who've done it and not developed it).
As for the organ side of things, there is evidence that the levels of inflammation in the body are raised after significant efforts like marathon or IM. Prolonged inflammation like that is clearly bad for the system. That's why breaks in training are also important. Its entirely possible that Salazar caused his own heart attach by training too hard for too long without breaks (don't know much about his own routine, just an example).
I am a little late getting to this thread, but if anyone is still interested, here is some data:
A quick summary - there is less disability and fewer deaths among middle aged runners. I should point out that doing these studies are very difficult because (1) the groups are often very different at the start of the study making comparison between the two statistically challenging and (2) it requires tremendous resources to try to keep track of people for 2 decades.
There may be more data, but this is the best I came up with.
chris
Arch Intern Med. 2008 Aug 11;168(15):1638-46.
Reduced disability and mortality among aging runners: a 21-year longitudinal study.
Chakravarty EF, Hubert HB, Lingala VB, Fries JF.
Division of Immunology and Rheumatology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, USA. echakravarty@stanford.edu
Erratum in:
Comment in:
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Exercise has been shown to improve many health outcomes and well-being of people of all ages. Long-term studies in older adults are needed to confirm disability and survival benefits of exercise.
METHODS: Annual self-administered questionnaires were sent to 538 members of a nationwide running club and 423 healthy controls from northern California who were 50 years and older beginning in 1984. Data included running and exercise frequency, body mass index, and disability assessed by the Health Assessment Questionnaire Disability Index (HAQ-DI; scored from 0 [no difficulty] to 3 [unable to perform]) through 2005. A total of 284 runners and 156 controls completed the 21-year follow-up. Causes of death through 2003 were ascertained using the National Death Index. Multivariate regression techniques compared groups on disability and mortality.
RESULTS: At baseline, runners were younger, leaner, and less likely to smoke compared with controls. The mean (SD) HAQ-DI score was higher for controls than for runners at all time points and increased with age in both groups, but to a lesser degree in runners (0.17 [0.34]) than in controls (0.36 [0.55]) (P < .001). Multivariate analyses showed that runners had a significantly lower risk of an HAQ-DI score of 0.5 (hazard ratio, 0.62; 95% confidence interval, 0.46-0.84). At 19 years, 15% of runners had died compared with 34% of controls. After adjustment for covariates, runners demonstrated a survival benefit (hazard ratio, 0.61; 95% confidence interval, 0.45-0.82). Disability and survival curves continued to diverge between groups after the 21-year follow-up as participants approached their ninth decade of life.
CONCLUSION: Vigorous exercise (running) at middle and older ages is associated with reduced disability in later life and a notable survival advantage.
PMID: 18695077 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]Free Article