4 ms·

Is that like "break a record, die of cancer" kind of choice. I wonder if you gave an athlete that choice explicitly which path would they choose.

Mountain_Skies 6y ago
Quite a few would pick cancer and the record. Top athletes do all kinds of terrible damage to themselves even without the assistance of illegal drugs. Top cyclists have to wear heart rate monitors that wake them up when their heart rates get too low because their training makes their hearts so efficient that when they rest, the heart rate can get too low to be sustained. Top cyclists dying in their sleep happens far more frequently than it does for random selections of the general population. To combat this, an alarm wakes them up so they can exercise to get their heart rate up. Even knowing this, cyclists will train themselves at a level that ends up creating this condition.
- fractionalhare 6y ago
  > Top cyclists have to wear heart rate monitors that wake them up when their heart rates get too low because their training makes their hearts so efficient that when they rest, the heart rate can get too low to be sustained. Do you have a source for this? I don't believe it. I tried searching for a few mins and couldn't find anything to confirm it either. I wouldn't be surprised if cyclists die in their sleep often due to drug use. But I would be very surprised if you can literally overtrain your heart to the point of dying in your sleep due to low resting heart rate.
  - dh5 6y ago
    The commenter may have been referring to Rendell's Death of Marco Pantani which IIRC had a line that went something like "during the day he lived to ride, at night he rode to live."
  - mft_ 6y ago
    It was detailed in a biography of Marco Pantani - referring to him and his peers. This was probably partly (at least) related to epo - the increased oxygen carrying capacity of the blood was probably what led to their exceptionally low heart rates. I’ve not read about this phenomenon outside of the epo-dominated era.
  - nl 6y ago
    Paul Kimmage wrote about it in his book: There was the confession of the top Italian‘Y’and his explanation ofhow he had narrowly cheated death after a stage of the Tour of Italy.Boosted before the stage by an injection of EPO, he had gone to bed hat night and slept peacefully for two hours, unaware that the oxygen-enhanced blood, flowing through his veins, was rapidly thickening to treacle. EPO is transformed into a lethal cocktail, not during a race when the blood is pumped around the body by a 180 beats-per-minute, high-revving, super-fit, heart rate but at night when the revsdrop way below the norm. As Y’s pulse dropped to a low of twenty-fivebeats per minute, his blood began to clot and his heart began to stall.Had he not been sharing with a team-mate, there is every chance they would have found him dead in the morning...Y lived to tell the tale.Others were not so fortunate. and Robin Parisotto wrote this: Between 1987 and 1990, 18 cyclists died tragically and suddenly all from heart attack or stroke. EPO was known to thicken the blood the common cause of heart attack or stroke. Many victims developed clots that broke off and travelled to their hearts or brains; others died of simple cardiac arrest, the organ struggling to pump blood the consistency of oil. These are all from [1], which is a review of the evidence as to if this actually occurred. It cast doubt on it, but I've read enough accounts to think that cyclists did believe it occurred and probably were wearing HR monitors in bed when on EPO. [1] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/17460263.2011.555208 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/17460263.2011.55...
  - FpUser 6y ago
    Not sure about dying but here is my personal experience. I am far from being anywhere close to a real cyclist. Still I used to ride a bit too much and at some point my resting heart rate dropped down to below 45. At this point I got really scared and cut down on my cycling. Now it is more like 50 so it is ok. Funny thing I also swim a lot but it does not seem to affect my heart rate as much as cycling has.
    - nradov 6y ago
      Unless you have a serious heart defect or are using certain PEDs there's no reason to be scared or a resting heart rate of 45.
      - FpUser 6y ago
        At that point 45 was upper limit of my RHR. The lowest short time span value that I remember was 38. I just did not like it at all. Curious if I get downvoted for this as well.
        nradov 6y ago
        There's no medical reason to dislike a RHR of 38.
  - giobox 6y ago
    There's a chance this tale is apocryphal, but the 90s was a pretty dark time for professional cycling and it is of course 100% drug use (EPO etc) related. I've heard this story in several cycling books/pro cycling talks usually in connection to Marco Pantani. Marco Pantani stories are often exaggerated as the man was almost like a folk hero to many fans and sad stories about his death historically sold well especially in Italy. There are a great many "legendary" stories regarding EPO use in the pro peloton in the 90s and riders were often deeply paranoid bordering on superstitious about what the training and new drugs were doing to their bodies, hence the rich vein of apocryphal tales and dubious advice. To be clear, it's definitely not a practice that is at all required of 99% of healthy pro-cyclists! Top cyclists wear heart rate monitors to train more efficiently just like many other athletes. I could certainly believe some riders would have been _paranoid_ enough to wear one regardless of merit in bed while taking EPO though. These were often young men heavily pressured into injecting for first time etc and in 90s not like you could just google "EPO side effects" like you might today. EPO use was rampant in cycling the 90s, largely because there was no good test to detect it widely used in sport till early 2000s, and the advantage it could confer was pretty significant in cycling - see Lance Armstrong's career.
    - borroka 6y ago
      Read Sandro Donati's books (not available in English afaik, but Google Translate now works pretty well).
- dh5 6y ago
  You may be thinking of Marco Pantani, who cycled in an era of widespread EPO use which dramatically thickens their blood. That coupled with a low resting heart rate can indeed lead to death. I'm not aware of low heart rate by itself being a killer.
- mikestew 6y ago
  Top cyclists dying in their sleep happens far more frequently than it does for random selections of the general population. That's because the performance-enhancing drug EPO thickens the blood so much that the heart can't pump it, not because of low heart rates. Low heart rate in itself is not necessarily a "condition". I assume you're slightly misremembering the details of a story similar to this one: https://www.ridemedia.com.au/features/epo-and-the-spate-of-sudden-deaths/ https://www.ridemedia.com.au/features/epo-and-the-spate-of-s...
  - Scoundreller 6y ago
    Could be a bit of both? I’ve heard of EPO-users getting up in the middle of the night to trainer cycle because exercise increases blood flow which reduces clotting risk. Lower heart rates may cause/compound this. Even a non-fatal minor clot in a leg or lung will doom a cyclist. In hospitals, sedentary patients will receive anti-clotting drugs, but may not (or get reduced dosages) if they’re able to walk around a lot.
  - HDMI_Cable 6y ago
    Wouldn't the pumping of thicker blood cause heart rate to become lower? This seems like a lurking variable situation.
- plank_time 6y ago
  Almost all the top cyclists were on performance enhancing drugs, so it’s hard to get a good feel for whether or not what you describe is because of their training or the damage the drugs did.
- mjbeswick 6y ago
  That's simply a myth perpetuated to cover up the fact that they are taking EPO. Just like the myth created by the British in WW2 that attributed the success of the RAF at night to earthing carrots to cover up the fact that they were using radar.
mikestew 6y ago
There was a survey or study of some sort related to this very question. My search foo fails me at the moment, but the question was directed to elite athletes: "Olympic medal and take ten (or maybe five) years off your life?". IIRC, close to half said, "where do I sign?". Damned if I can find a link, though. It was all over every athletic-oriented magazine ten years ago. EDIT: there's even a Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldman%27s_dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldman%27s_dilemma
wp381640 6y ago
There are people who accept less than a world record You only have to walk into any local gym to find people who do terrible things to themselves for no more than an Instagram selfie

Mountain_Skies 6y ago

Quite a few would pick cancer and the record. Top athletes do all kinds of terrible damage to themselves even without the assistance of illegal drugs. Top cyclists have to wear heart rate monitors that wake them up when their heart rates get too low because their training makes their hearts so efficient that when they rest, the heart rate can get too low to be sustained. Top cyclists dying in their sleep happens far more frequently than it does for random selections of the general population. To combat this, an alarm wakes them up so they can exercise to get their heart rate up. Even knowing this, cyclists will train themselves at a level that ends up creating this condition.

fractionalhare 6y ago
> Top cyclists have to wear heart rate monitors that wake them up when their heart rates get too low because their training makes their hearts so efficient that when they rest, the heart rate can get too low to be sustained. Do you have a source for this? I don't believe it. I tried searching for a few mins and couldn't find anything to confirm it either. I wouldn't be surprised if cyclists die in their sleep often due to drug use. But I would be very surprised if you can literally overtrain your heart to the point of dying in your sleep due to low resting heart rate.
- dh5 6y ago
  The commenter may have been referring to Rendell's Death of Marco Pantani which IIRC had a line that went something like "during the day he lived to ride, at night he rode to live."
- mft_ 6y ago
  It was detailed in a biography of Marco Pantani - referring to him and his peers. This was probably partly (at least) related to epo - the increased oxygen carrying capacity of the blood was probably what led to their exceptionally low heart rates. I’ve not read about this phenomenon outside of the epo-dominated era.
- nl 6y ago
  Paul Kimmage wrote about it in his book: There was the confession of the top Italian‘Y’and his explanation ofhow he had narrowly cheated death after a stage of the Tour of Italy.Boosted before the stage by an injection of EPO, he had gone to bed hat night and slept peacefully for two hours, unaware that the oxygen-enhanced blood, flowing through his veins, was rapidly thickening to treacle. EPO is transformed into a lethal cocktail, not during a race when the blood is pumped around the body by a 180 beats-per-minute, high-revving, super-fit, heart rate but at night when the revsdrop way below the norm. As Y’s pulse dropped to a low of twenty-fivebeats per minute, his blood began to clot and his heart began to stall.Had he not been sharing with a team-mate, there is every chance they would have found him dead in the morning...Y lived to tell the tale.Others were not so fortunate. and Robin Parisotto wrote this: Between 1987 and 1990, 18 cyclists died tragically and suddenly all from heart attack or stroke. EPO was known to thicken the blood the common cause of heart attack or stroke. Many victims developed clots that broke off and travelled to their hearts or brains; others died of simple cardiac arrest, the organ struggling to pump blood the consistency of oil. These are all from [1], which is a review of the evidence as to if this actually occurred. It cast doubt on it, but I've read enough accounts to think that cyclists did believe it occurred and probably were wearing HR monitors in bed when on EPO. [1] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/17460263.2011.555208 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/17460263.2011.55...
- FpUser 6y ago
  Not sure about dying but here is my personal experience. I am far from being anywhere close to a real cyclist. Still I used to ride a bit too much and at some point my resting heart rate dropped down to below 45. At this point I got really scared and cut down on my cycling. Now it is more like 50 so it is ok. Funny thing I also swim a lot but it does not seem to affect my heart rate as much as cycling has.
  - nradov 6y ago
    Unless you have a serious heart defect or are using certain PEDs there's no reason to be scared or a resting heart rate of 45.
    - FpUser 6y ago
      At that point 45 was upper limit of my RHR. The lowest short time span value that I remember was 38. I just did not like it at all. Curious if I get downvoted for this as well.
      - nradov 6y ago
        There's no medical reason to dislike a RHR of 38.
- giobox 6y ago
  There's a chance this tale is apocryphal, but the 90s was a pretty dark time for professional cycling and it is of course 100% drug use (EPO etc) related. I've heard this story in several cycling books/pro cycling talks usually in connection to Marco Pantani. Marco Pantani stories are often exaggerated as the man was almost like a folk hero to many fans and sad stories about his death historically sold well especially in Italy. There are a great many "legendary" stories regarding EPO use in the pro peloton in the 90s and riders were often deeply paranoid bordering on superstitious about what the training and new drugs were doing to their bodies, hence the rich vein of apocryphal tales and dubious advice. To be clear, it's definitely not a practice that is at all required of 99% of healthy pro-cyclists! Top cyclists wear heart rate monitors to train more efficiently just like many other athletes. I could certainly believe some riders would have been _paranoid_ enough to wear one regardless of merit in bed while taking EPO though. These were often young men heavily pressured into injecting for first time etc and in 90s not like you could just google "EPO side effects" like you might today. EPO use was rampant in cycling the 90s, largely because there was no good test to detect it widely used in sport till early 2000s, and the advantage it could confer was pretty significant in cycling - see Lance Armstrong's career.
  - borroka 6y ago
    Read Sandro Donati's books (not available in English afaik, but Google Translate now works pretty well).
dh5 6y ago
You may be thinking of Marco Pantani, who cycled in an era of widespread EPO use which dramatically thickens their blood. That coupled with a low resting heart rate can indeed lead to death. I'm not aware of low heart rate by itself being a killer.
mikestew 6y ago
Top cyclists dying in their sleep happens far more frequently than it does for random selections of the general population. That's because the performance-enhancing drug EPO thickens the blood so much that the heart can't pump it, not because of low heart rates. Low heart rate in itself is not necessarily a "condition". I assume you're slightly misremembering the details of a story similar to this one: https://www.ridemedia.com.au/features/epo-and-the-spate-of-sudden-deaths/ https://www.ridemedia.com.au/features/epo-and-the-spate-of-s...
- Scoundreller 6y ago
  Could be a bit of both? I’ve heard of EPO-users getting up in the middle of the night to trainer cycle because exercise increases blood flow which reduces clotting risk. Lower heart rates may cause/compound this. Even a non-fatal minor clot in a leg or lung will doom a cyclist. In hospitals, sedentary patients will receive anti-clotting drugs, but may not (or get reduced dosages) if they’re able to walk around a lot.
- HDMI_Cable 6y ago
  Wouldn't the pumping of thicker blood cause heart rate to become lower? This seems like a lurking variable situation.
plank_time 6y ago
Almost all the top cyclists were on performance enhancing drugs, so it’s hard to get a good feel for whether or not what you describe is because of their training or the damage the drugs did.
mjbeswick 6y ago
That's simply a myth perpetuated to cover up the fact that they are taking EPO. Just like the myth created by the British in WW2 that attributed the success of the RAF at night to earthing carrots to cover up the fact that they were using radar.

mikestew 6y ago

There was a survey or study of some sort related to this very question. My search foo fails me at the moment, but the question was directed to elite athletes: "Olympic medal and take ten (or maybe five) years off your life?". IIRC, close to half said, "where do I sign?". Damned if I can find a link, though. It was all over every athletic-oriented magazine ten years ago. EDIT: there's even a Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldman%27s_dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldman%27s_dilemma

wp381640 6y ago

There are people who accept less than a world record You only have to walk into any local gym to find people who do terrible things to themselves for no more than an Instagram selfie