Knock on All Endurance Training

[rclouviere]

I'm beginning to see more and more on the detriment of endurance training. There is a lot of talk (and studies, etc.), that say endurance training is not beneficial, and actually harmful to the body and the only training should be quick, intense cardio.

Here's the latest article. Will someone with some expertise refute these allegations?

http://www.turbulencetraining.com/friends-of/?utm_source=friends&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=tt2

 

[An old Guy]

Do 1 hour of intense cardio. Go out and ride a hard 100 miles. Compare your heart rate during the different rides. That should tell you what you need to know.

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But it all depends on what you want to accomplish.

 

[danfoz]

Do you want to go fast on a bike or loose some belly fat? Ironically most of the folks I know who go fast on a bike don't have much belly fat, go figure. For many on this forum weight loss is a by product of the activity, not the goal itself, which is simply to enjoy spending time on the bike at whatever intensity that may be.

Btw the "article" appears to be an advertisement.

 

[rclouviere]

Do you want to go fast on a bike or loose some belly fat? Ironically most of the folks I know who go fast on a bike don't have much belly fat, go figure. For many on this forum weight loss is a by product of the activity, not the goal itself, which is simply to enjoy spending time on the bike at whatever intensity that may be. Btw the "article" appears to be an advertisement.

 

[maydog]

Avoid any web ad that offers a "weird trick" to fix any problem.

From the bit I read of the brochure, it appears that they were cherry picking and taking scientific studies out of context. In this realm of research, there are a lot of studies with conflicting results - its the nature of the beast.

It is funny that one of the "paper's" main premises is that we are not intended to perform endurance tasks. The contrary is true, humans have evolved an impressive number of endurance adaptations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistence_hunting
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endurance_running_hypothesis

There may be ways to do cardio wrong; like exercising one time a week and then hit the cheetos after.

 

[rclouviere]

Personally, I'm not concerned with weight (I'm 6' and 160 lbs). I'm concerned with the claims of damage to the heart and cooper's quote: "Even Dr. Kenneth Cooper, the founder of aerobics, recently admitted that he was WRONG about cardio. In his latest book, he said there is “no correlation between ‘aerobic’ endurance performance and healthy, longevity or protection against heart disease.” And the claim of oxidative damage. You're exactly right, this is an ad for an exercise program, but it cites other articles.

 

[alienator]

Personally, I'm not concerned with weight (I'm 6' and 160 lbs). I'm concerned with the claims of damage to the heart and cooper's quote: "Even Dr. Kenneth Cooper, the founder of aerobics, recently admitted that he was WRONG about cardio. In his latest book, he said there is “no correlation between ‘aerobic’ endurance performance and healthy, longevity or protection against heart disease.” And the claim of oxidative damage. You're exactly right, this is an ad for an exercise program, but it cites other articles.

The claims of damage to the heart as the result of endurance training are way overblown and out of context. First, Jim Fixx may have been predisposed to heart issues as the result of diet, genetics, or other factors. To say it was his endurance training is a baseless claim. It has been suggested that extreme endurance training can have deleterious health effects (cardiac being one possibility), but those are the rare case, the exceedingly rare case. The article in your link is just bad and should be completely disregarded. If you have concerns I’d recommend talking to your doc and checking the latest research via Google Scholar or arXiv. Be very wary of any articles or studies not published in refereed journals. Be doubly suspicious of a web page that has a popup asking if you really want to leave the page and promising a gift.

 

[maydog]

Originally Posted by rclouviere

Personally, I'm not concerned with weight (I'm 6' and 160 lbs). I'm concerned with the claims of damage to the heart and cooper's quote: "Even Dr. Kenneth Cooper, the founder of aerobics, recently admitted that he was WRONG about cardio. In his latest book, he said there is “no correlation between ‘aerobic’ endurance performance and healthy, longevity or protection against heart disease.”

And the claim of oxidative damage.

You're exactly right, this is an ad for an exercise program, but it cites other articles.

Don't get too excited about a single quote and don't read too much about it.

If true, the lack of a correlation between aerobic endurance and longevity is actually an indication that 'aerobics' does not negatively impact long term health.

Aerobic capacity can greatly impact quality of life. Statistics using age and mortality sweep quality of life under the rug.

 

[Felt_Rider]

It looks like scare tactics to sell a training scheme.

Imagine the multitudes of fitness centers across the US alone that are packed morning and evening on loads of cardio machines, the amount of people in third world countries where they only have a means of cycling or walking from village to village, the amount of people in our past history that walked or jogged as their only means of transportation.

We would know by this point if cardio was truly as bad as stated as that person claims.

Just takes a little reflection time to know these claims are absolutely ridiculous.

 

[danfoz]

Originally Posted by maydog

Statistics using age and mortality sweep quality of life under the rug.

Thinking about all the cartons of ciggies, the gallons of booze, the fistacuffs from saying stoopid **** in the bar after said gallons of booze, the pillowcases of ganja, the piles of yayo, the sleep deprivation brought on by fraternization with the fairer sex, the helmetless miles, the workouts where I literally tried to see what my lungs looked like inside out, yada yada yada... I woulda needed a big rug. Nothing to be proud of, in fact I'm sure some of it was conspiring to bring about my speedy demise, but I wouldn't have missed any of it for another couple years on the tail end. Maybe the cigarettes I could have done without.