Correlation doesn't mean causation

Genetic make up plays a larger role. There has been plenty of endurance athletes that had health issues, some serious, later in life that was caused by genetics.....not their life style.

It doesn't not mean causation either! It's the first step in the stairway towards causation.

Edit: But I agree that cherry-picking like half a dozen anecdotes and trying to reach some conclusion is worthless.

For one thing it makes you look a lot older than your stated age and tends to make you less attractive in personal appearance. May not be a big deal to many, but I was always shocked at races to see some old chewed up looking person and find out they were only 38 years old and looked 55.

The sun and long slow distance is not your friend for staying young and healthy looking.

I don't have the reference for it as they were mentioned in a few podcasts I was listening to but they have recently done some studies and what they speculated was that the reason high training athletes can have a reduced life span is due to the fact that since they are outwardly so fit, doctors were less likely to run heart tests and were more likely to ignore small abnormalities. Further, issues can present very differently in elite athletes. There was an athlete the doctor mentioned who weekly would do a track workout and would very consistently do intervals at certain pace and one day despite feeling good, was a decent amount slower compared to the prior week. That athlete decided to go to the doctor to check it out (Kind of extreme since we all have off days) but he actually found out he just had a mild heart attack.

Now we don't want to go to the doctor everytime we have an off day but the point was is that we have to be mindful and conscious that just because we have a high fitness level, doesn't mean we are immune to issues and have to still go for tests and be attentive to our body.

This has not been my experience. Most triathletes look great to me for their age. Most of us with families and jobs trained early in the morning.

OTOH the people who are now in their 60s and starting to workout look much older to me.

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Indoor Triathlete - I thought I was right, until I realized I was wrong.

This has not been my experience. Most triathletes look great to me for their age. Most of us with families and jobs trained early in the morning.


OTOH the people who are now in their 60s and starting to workout look much older to me.


There is a wide gap between people "exercising" and doing high volume training and racing. In my small sample, I think people who are active (ie. not sitting) and do things like biking, swimming, hiking, gardening) regularly and consistently look the best. They are active in terms of movement, not racing and training for races. Most of the ageing however, depends on genetics and especially diet.

X2, this has not been my experience either, but I have semi anecdotally observational study going and I think some of this comes down to rest, nutrition, and stress. Give the body proper stress and rest and it grows. Just give it stress without proper recovery nutrition and it wilts.

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Based on people I know, heart conditions can happen to us. Better athletes that I have trained with have already had their heart attacks. While I would pass a stress test and have a good EKG, none the less my left anterior descending had a calcification score of 137.

My liver was hurting because I was easily burning >4000 calories a day and replacing the calories with sugar. My bilirubin was at 2.1 and after a cutting out sugar and processed foods it's now down to 1.1. If one doesn't eat and drink right, the liver will pay a price at that caloric rate.

There are long term impacts. Most of them are tremendously healthy ones. I am so glad that my knees and hips are not carrying an extra 50 to 100 pounds. Many people my age do and they have a hard time just getting around.

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Indoor Triathlete - I thought I was right, until I realized I was wrong.

Lets go back to the basics.

Training is a STRESS on the heart and body. Stress can be good and bad depending on several variables.

Can endurance training in high volume sacrifice someones long term health? Absolutely!

Can endurance training in high volume maximize someones long term health? Absolutely!

How do they handle the stress?
How do they recover between sessions?
What type of environment are they in?
How much sun exposure are they getting?
What type of intensity are they continually putting in?
What type of quality sleep are they getting?
Etc.

I believe full well that you can have 2 people with all things being equal over 20 years do the exact same high volume training and one might see heart issues. Then the question goes up to the questions above that might be the trigger.

Lots of long term research to be done (and being done) on all of this.

I don't think there are that many pros who did 6 or 7 IMs a year for very long. Petr Vabrousek, of course, was an exception. There was the Ironman World Series for several years in the early '90s (I think) that rewarded doing 3+ IMs per year. Scott Tinley won that title three times and ended up with long term issues described as symptomatic of chronic overtraining syndrome and had a hip replacement in 2007. Ray Browning also was a World Series contender who did 3+ IMs per year for several years, but I don't know about any long term health consequences he has suffered.

I am very interested in this topic as a life long higher volume age grouper. Every year since I was 19, I have trained 700 hrs + per year. Most years are right around 800 hrs and I had a few years in the high 800hrs. That's almost as much as some pros. I am 54 in a few weeks. I am able to sustain this rate of training with no problem right now.

Just this week, I did a 32 hrs training week. I was in Kona to watch the racing and do a big week of swimming + cycling with Rob Gray who is training for ultraman hawaii. I had no good reason to go 2.5 times my recent volume other than I had time off and the riding off the QueenK both south and north of Kona are amazing. I was doing 4-6 hrs per day.

But generally I have been doing a lot of swimming and weights and a low volume of running (really just got back into it) and some cycling. Swimming, weights and the rowing machine at fairly high intensity has been my refuge for the last 4 years. I actually feel healthier on slightly lower volume and doing more anaerobic fast twitch oriented training focused on swim racing.

I look at my friends who are racers in both XC skiing and masters swimming in their 60's and 70's. These people are generally doing really well. Runners seem to be doing the worst. Cyclist seem to do fine as long as they have not had major life altering crashes (such as myself).

Having said, that everyone once in while putting down a 22-30 hrs week when I have time off is fun for me. Basically training a bit like a pro "just because". I also really enjoy going to the weight room and pushing heavy weights (for me). I've done weights since I was 16 and I think maintaining your fast twitch muscle fiber has positive impact on anti aging hormones. My 6 pack at 54 is as good as when I was 25, but I work at it.

I do worry from time to time, that i am overcooking it for when I am 70 and MAY regret it. But I can't help myself from enjoying myself now. I could get hit by a bolt of lightening tomorrow or the plane I am in right now flying home may crash anyway. It would be ironic if this plane crashed versus not dying on an 80 kph descentt in driving rain with Rob Gray with the sun about to set (zero visibility) coming down a 15 percent grade near Capttain Cook 2days ago. We were literally hoping that we were staying on the road upright in the rain almost in the dark...but man, was it ever fun coming out the other side

Well I believe it killed my brother in law. Background: he was 61, masters elite, sub 6 mile pace, had accumulated over 500 placed (top 3) awards, and over 300 of those were first place finishes. He finished a 10k and while warming down felt a little faint, sat down and collapsed. Immediate cpr and defib, but no success. No family history of heart disease (both parents lived to 95). He had undergone a complete physical two months prior including heart stress test (bragged about the doctor saying he was in better shape then most 20 year olds). I don’t recall him caring much about his diet, due to the calories he was burning, so it was probably the typical American diet of crap; fast food, processed food, etc. He was probably doing 50 MPW for over 30 years. In the absence of any other known factor, and given that he died after strenuous exertion, high volume training and racing correlate to his death. This happened over 12 or so years ago and since then I’ve closely followed sudden deaths of athletes, and research on potential cause (also read the various books and articles). Here is my summary of the causes of sudden cardiac death in athletes: we just don’t know.

Since I’m the only other endurance athlete in the family, there is concern that all my training could lead to the same end. But just like my BIL I’m a runner, and a runner has to run.

Whether or not there are long term ramifications to high volume training/racing, my advice is to enjoy it now while you can. And enjoy it as long as you can. You don't know what's around the corner in life. Your life can change in an instant. We are all very lucky and privileged to be doing Ironmans, marathons, master swimming (or whatever sport brought you to this forum). As long as you are happy and passionate about the training and racing I feel that also makes a difference. Happy people are healthier people (generally speaking). Just remember to recover well, take an offseason and don't take yourself so seriously :-) <3

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Death is easy....peaceful. Life is harder.

Here is one of the more popular TED talks on the subject
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lzs5wpLkeA

And that was my point.

Like.

This^^^^^^

How do they handle the stress?
How do they recover between sessions?
What type of environment are they in?
How much sun exposure are they getting?
What type of intensity are they continually putting in?
What type of quality sleep are they getting?

And what is their diet?

I don’t recall him caring much about his diet

That's an important variable.