Is Running Bad For You?!

As I'm sure a lot of you know by now, I am not the biggest fan of running. Up until now, the biggest reason was mainly because I wasn't good at it and it was painful. However, some recent research has surfaced that has given me one more reason to not like running.  A recent article published by a research cardiologist examined life-long runners and their risk of dying from heart related issues.  What he found was actually rather startling....

 

I'm sure most of you (myself included) have always believed that regularly exercise is good for you and will increase your lifespan.  On the flip side, if you sit around all day doing nothing, you probably have a higher risk of developing diseases, particularly cardiovascular disease, and therefore may not live as long.  A recent article titled: "Run for your life...at a comfortable speed and not too far" found some rather contradictory evidence that this may not be the case.  Everyone has probably heard of the individuals who have collapsed and died during/following athletic events or bouts of exercise EVEN THOUGH they were thought to have been in excellent shape.  A lot of these cases are believed to have been caused by underlying genetic conditions (i.e. hypertrophic cardiomyopathy). which is the leading causes of cardiac death in athletes.  However, there may be more to the story.

In the previously mentioned article, it stated:

"High-intensity exercise sessions lasting beyond 1–2 h cause acute volume overload of the atria and right ventricle (RV), which can bring about overstretching and micro-tears in the myocardium, as evidenced by a transient rise in cardiac biomarkers." 

Basically this is saying long-term intense exercise can actually cause damage to your heart. This kind of goes against everything we have been believing for years, right?  The authors did explain that the acute damages seen following the intense exercise does revert itself and things can go back to normal within a few days.  However, they also explained that if high-intensity or high-volumes of exercise are sustained for multiple hours a day for multiple days/months/years (i.e. marathon runners) the damage can add up and actually speed up the "aging" process of the heart!  In the graph below, it shows an individual's risk of dying, dependent on how many miles a week they run  The red bar on the far left represents a sedentary individual who has the highest risk of dying.  On the other end of the spectrum, there are 2 red bars representing people who run 20-25 miles and more than 25 miles a week and they also have a relatively high risk of dying....wait, what?A sedentary person has the same risk of dying due to disease as a life-long marathon runner who is in excellent shape!?

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And On The Seventh Day...I Rested

It's that day of the week that every exercise junkie dreads....rest day.

Hi, my name is Andrew Jagim and I am an exercise addict (not me in the picture by the way).  In my eyes, if I didn't work out one day I go to bed worrying that I got a little fatter and probably lost all the muscle and strength I had worked so hard for.  I think this way even though I KNOW this couldn't be further from the truth.

A lot of people fall into the misconception that if a little bit is good, than a lot is better! This can be true for some (i.e. if you weigh 400 lbs than there is no such thing as too much time on the stair climber).  However, for those individuals who try to train/lift/workout all out, give 110%, balls out, day in and day out than you may be  hindering your potential to improve.  It may sound crazy but it's on your off-days that you actually get bigger and stronger.  if you are training at a high intensity, you are actually causing micro-tears and other cellular damage to occur within your muscles.  Just like restoring an old building, sometimes you just have to tear down the old stuff to make room for the new stuff.  In a nutshell, this is how muscle growth works.  You damage your muscles and therefore are essentially forcing to come back bigger and better than before.  So not only is your time in the gym important but so is your time away from the gym.  This is also the reason why you should try to avoid training the same body part/muscle groups on consecutive days as those muscles need proper time to recover.

Proper sleep and nutrition are not only important on training days but they may be even MORE important on your rest days.  You need to make sure you keep your protein intake up in order to support the increasd rate of protein synthesis occuring as a result of your training.  This is especially the case for the weekend warriors who during the week eat right, get a solid 8 hrs of sleep, workout every day and then when the weekend comes around they party for 48 hours, eat like crap and then expect to pick it right up where they left off on Monday.  Then refer to their weekend as their "rest days."  Not only will the extra (and worthless) calories from alcohol likely lead to increases in body fat, research has shown that alcohol can lower growth hormone and testosterone levels which are key players in muscle growth and recovery.  A lack of sleep can also hinder your recovery and can have negative effects that last several days.

One thing I should mention, is that rest days or off-days don't have to consist of 12 hrs of couch time (unless it's football season).  Your off-day can consist of light activities or even your normal exercise routine but just drop the resistance/intensity way down.  This is one thing I'll knock on Cross-fit for.  A lot of their workouts are very intense with little-to-no lower intensity or volume days which can lead to symptoms of over-training if carried out over time.  

So, moral of the story: Train hard and rest hard!