4 ms·

No Such Thing as Too Much Exercise, Study Finds

19 points by devy 8y ago

moat 8y ago
A more educated view without the clickbait title: http://suppversity.blogspot.com/2018/10/survival-of-fittest-large-scale-study.html http://suppversity.blogspot.com/2018/10/survival-of-fittest-...
peterlk 8y ago
This headline and article may be right in spirit, but are obviously wrong in letter. And we do ourselves a disservice calling this oversimplification news. If you run/bike/whatever too hard for too long, you die. Plain and simple. Obviously, almost no one reading this article would ever be in danger of doing such a thing, but there is obviously an upper bound to how much exercise a human can perform. For those who don't feel like reading the article, the claim is that running is good for you, and that those who claim running too much can harm your health are wrong.
- gmiller123456 8y ago
  I suppose it's theoretically possible to perform some type of exercise until you die. It's also a lot more likely that exercise will strain your heart enough to cause a heart attack, or some other injury that leads to death. What the study is saying is that even accounting for all of those situations that actually happened, the odds are still in your favor to exercise more. So the odds are, you won't exercise until you die.
  - stevewodil 8y ago
    >So the odds are, you won't exercise until you die. How did you know this about me?
    - gmiller123456 8y ago
      Statistics say nothing about individuals. I cannot say you won't exercise until you die, but I can say there's a very low probability you will.
- hnbroseph 8y ago
  you could drink so much water that you die, as well. but... should we carefully note this every time someone says to drink a lot of water?
  - cbluth 8y ago
    You could inhale too much air too, your lungs aren't balloons, man!
everybodyknows 8y ago
News content of article contained in these 12 words: >... elite athletes only being slightly more death-proof than merely highly active people ... So, rational expectation confirmed: gradually diminishing returns to general health as fitness increases.
projektir 8y ago
What about overtraining syndrome and chronic fatigue syndrome?
- parliament32 8y ago
  While they both suck, AFAIK none of them will increase your mortality.
- icotyl 8y ago
  What about chronic fatigue syndrome? Is there some relation to too much exercise? Will it kill you?
bko 8y ago
If I'm reading this correctly the study tested people's athletic ability at some point in time and tracked when they died. The article conflates athletic ability and exercise. Sure a person that has great athletic ability would likely exercise a lot. But not necessarily and certainly not for the remainder of their life. Good athletes might have good genes. Maybe over exercise actually hurts your fitness and you would scores lower on the initial fitness test. Either way, I don't think the study even remotely supports the claim purported by the article
mixmastamyk 8y ago
Interesting, have always believed in exercise, but felt marathons were "too much" of a good thing. Should I reevaluate that?
- francisofascii 8y ago
  Just an anecdotal observation, people I know that run 70+ miles a week, and have full time jobs/families, etc. have to get up at 4:30 AM to get the miles in or rearrange schedules to fit everything in. So maybe any health decline is due to a decrease in quality sleep and increased stress to get the miles in, not the increased mileage. If you have tons of free time, run as much as you like.
  - mixmastamyk 8y ago
    To be honest, I won't be running that long anyway, though do ride my bike and hit the gym. It's just before I had a nice justification. ;-)
jwilk 8y ago
Different article about the same study from 2 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18264436 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18264436
risto1 8y ago
This is just another one of those issues where a scientifically illiterate magazine/paper picks up some article to confuse people even more. It's just pop science, you can't rely on single studies, a lot of studies suck in terms of how they're designed. One example where this is wrong: It's been clearly established that enough long distance running, like marathons, is cardiotoxic

19 points by devy 8y ago

moat 8y ago

A more educated view without the clickbait title: http://suppversity.blogspot.com/2018/10/survival-of-fittest-large-scale-study.html http://suppversity.blogspot.com/2018/10/survival-of-fittest-...

peterlk 8y ago

This headline and article may be right in spirit, but are obviously wrong in letter. And we do ourselves a disservice calling this oversimplification news. If you run/bike/whatever too hard for too long, you die. Plain and simple. Obviously, almost no one reading this article would ever be in danger of doing such a thing, but there is obviously an upper bound to how much exercise a human can perform. For those who don't feel like reading the article, the claim is that running is good for you, and that those who claim running too much can harm your health are wrong.

gmiller123456 8y ago
I suppose it's theoretically possible to perform some type of exercise until you die. It's also a lot more likely that exercise will strain your heart enough to cause a heart attack, or some other injury that leads to death. What the study is saying is that even accounting for all of those situations that actually happened, the odds are still in your favor to exercise more. So the odds are, you won't exercise until you die.
- stevewodil 8y ago
  >So the odds are, you won't exercise until you die. How did you know this about me?
  - gmiller123456 8y ago
    Statistics say nothing about individuals. I cannot say you won't exercise until you die, but I can say there's a very low probability you will.
hnbroseph 8y ago
you could drink so much water that you die, as well. but... should we carefully note this every time someone says to drink a lot of water?
- cbluth 8y ago
  You could inhale too much air too, your lungs aren't balloons, man!

everybodyknows 8y ago

News content of article contained in these 12 words: >... elite athletes only being slightly more death-proof than merely highly active people ... So, rational expectation confirmed: gradually diminishing returns to general health as fitness increases.

projektir 8y ago

What about overtraining syndrome and chronic fatigue syndrome?

parliament32 8y ago
While they both suck, AFAIK none of them will increase your mortality.
icotyl 8y ago
What about chronic fatigue syndrome? Is there some relation to too much exercise? Will it kill you?

bko 8y ago

If I'm reading this correctly the study tested people's athletic ability at some point in time and tracked when they died. The article conflates athletic ability and exercise. Sure a person that has great athletic ability would likely exercise a lot. But not necessarily and certainly not for the remainder of their life. Good athletes might have good genes. Maybe over exercise actually hurts your fitness and you would scores lower on the initial fitness test. Either way, I don't think the study even remotely supports the claim purported by the article

mixmastamyk 8y ago

Interesting, have always believed in exercise, but felt marathons were "too much" of a good thing. Should I reevaluate that?

francisofascii 8y ago
Just an anecdotal observation, people I know that run 70+ miles a week, and have full time jobs/families, etc. have to get up at 4:30 AM to get the miles in or rearrange schedules to fit everything in. So maybe any health decline is due to a decrease in quality sleep and increased stress to get the miles in, not the increased mileage. If you have tons of free time, run as much as you like.
- mixmastamyk 8y ago
  To be honest, I won't be running that long anyway, though do ride my bike and hit the gym. It's just before I had a nice justification. ;-)

jwilk 8y ago

Different article about the same study from 2 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18264436 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18264436

risto1 8y ago

This is just another one of those issues where a scientifically illiterate magazine/paper picks up some article to confuse people even more. It's just pop science, you can't rely on single studies, a lot of studies suck in terms of how they're designed. One example where this is wrong: It's been clearly established that enough long distance running, like marathons, is cardiotoxic