Why you should exercise till you die.

A light bike doesn't replace good fitness.

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Tapeworm
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by Tapeworm

http://sweatscience.com/the-incredible- ... riathlete/

Ok, its a triathlete, but the MRI gives a very clear example why it's a real good idea to keep exercising till the day you die.

(MRI has to be one of the coolest bits of kit out there, x-rays seem rather antiquated next to them.)
"Physiology is all just propaganda and lies... all waiting to be disproven by the next study."
"I'm not a real doctor; But I am a real worm; I am an actual worm." - TMBG

Aussiebullet
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by Aussiebullet

Brilliant!!!

Just like the age old saying, "You havn't slowed down because you got old.... You got old because you slowed down!"

by Weenie


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theremery
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by theremery

Deleted ( in the interests of good taste [ish])
Updated: Racing again! Thought this was unlikely! Eventually, I may even have a decent race!
Edit: 2015: darn near won the best South Island series (got second in age
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LouisN
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by LouisN

It would be interesting to see a 40 yrs old, even a 30 yrs old sedentary human MRI in comparison too.

Louis :)

Illuminate
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by Illuminate

TW, very interesting but the pictures as they are mean very little from a scientific POV. Thanks for posting nevertheless.

Cheers,
I

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Tapeworm
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by Tapeworm

Did you read the corresponding study? And they mean a bit in scientific circles especially in aged health care (recently used in a presentation on this bery topic by a Dr in the field) etc. So no sure how they mean little from a science POV.
"Physiology is all just propaganda and lies... all waiting to be disproven by the next study."
"I'm not a real doctor; But I am a real worm; I am an actual worm." - TMBG

Illuminate
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by Illuminate

Nah, sorry. Just saw the pics. Will have a read when I get home.
I

ajz07
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by ajz07

exercise yes, but serious endurance exercising as you get older... unfortunately generally tied to worse outcomes in most studies

petalpower
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by petalpower

ajz07 wrote:exercise yes, but serious endurance exercising as you get older... unfortunately generally tied to worse outcomes in most studies


Do you have any links off the top of your head? I'm interested.

CerveloBert
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by CerveloBert

I do recall some studies talking about endurance people in their 70's, If I can find this link after work - I'll give it to you guys.

ajz07
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by ajz07

petalpower wrote:
ajz07 wrote:exercise yes, but serious endurance exercising as you get older... unfortunately generally tied to worse outcomes in most studies


Do you have any links off the top of your head? I'm interested.


sorry, forgot to check back at this thread....I apologize for what follows, apparently I wanted to say a couple of things.
Let me amend my previous comments. I should also preface this and say that my day job is that of a cardiologist (which may or may not mean I know anything). Most of the studies have been done in marathoners which are a slightly different subset that cyclists. However the changes seen on the heart are likely the same. There is no doubt that exercise is good for you. There is no doubt that exercising as you get older is extremely good for you (slows down dementia, likely decreased risk for a heart attack, slos down the inevitable progression to high blood pressure, etc..). However it is the amount and intensity which can potentially be bad for you. That being said we all have to die of something, so it is a bit of pick your poison. The other issues is what population are we talking about. I would say we are definitely talking about men older than 60, and potentially this whole thing starts to be a concern in the mid 50's (maybe).

The problem with intense endurance exercise in an older population is as follows....
1. Heart breakdown. There are numerous studies showing that a biomarker called troponin is present after endurance events which is not present prior. This marker is consequently the same one we use to detect heart attacks and signals muscle breakdown in the heart. For younger people this is fine as they can handle it. For older people this is a bit of a problem as they can actually weaken their hearts by doing long term strenuous exercise. In addition to this breakdown of heart muscle coupled with dehydration can lead to renal failure.
2. Muscle adaptation. What I really mean by this is heart muscle adaptation. There is something called "athletes heart" which is seen in most true athletes and especially in endurance athletes. It is where the walls of the heart actually get thicker in response to the increased blood pressure the heart sees from the amount of exercise that occurs. This is a necessary adaptation for the heart to be able to push the appropriate amount of blood out of it's primary pumping chamber (the left ventricle) and through the body. As one ages thickening or hypertrophy becomes more so because the pressures which are seen are actually higher than when one is younger and so the heart has to thicken more in order to accommodate this. This leads to muscle scarring or fibrosis which is generally known to be a marker of poorer outcomes.
3. Renal failure. The flow through the kidneys decreases as we get older, it is simply a fact of life. Most people over the age of 65 have a small amount of renal failure at baseline. You couple that with an endurance event which leads to dehydration and the renal failure gets worse (dehydration leads to less blood volume as blood is made up of a large amount of water, which leads to less blood flow past the kidney which leads to kidney failure). However once the flow through the kidneys decreases the body starts to build up toxic metabolites instead of getting rid of them. This then leads to a whole host of other problems. Yes this can mostly be avoided with appropriate hydration, but it is a state which older individuals are far more prone to then younger healthy athletes.

There are some other studies which have also looked at possible increase in coronary artery disease in marathon runners, but the populations they looked at were not so good, so it was pretty much ignored (and really makes no sense physiologically). Yes, there are obviously people who do very hard endurance exercise late into life and are fine. I cannot explain it except to say that genes obviously play a role in ways we dont yet understand and they are somehow able to deal with the heart adaptations which occur (or are resistant to them). However, for the general population hard endurance exercise late into life has led to bad outcomes in several studies. Cant find them off the top of my head, if and when I do I will post them. I dont think we know enough to say exactly who it has led to bad outcomes for, which is why I still occasionally do 150 mile events with my father who is >65yrs old.

Although I hate getting scientific data from the new york times they actually sum it up relatively well in a small series of articles which I will link to below. I will also include some links to a couple of scientific studies.

Scientific studies
http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/123/1/13.short
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21330616
http://eurheartj.oxfordjournals.org/content/29/15/1903.full

NY times articles
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/30/phys-ed-how-do-marathons-affect-your-heart/
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/09/when-exercise-is-too-much-of-a-good-thing/

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Tapeworm
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by Tapeworm

Thanks for the detailed post.

On point 1), IIRC this can be a risk even for young athletes and was more likely a genetic predisposition rather than age in itself. Not everyone is cut out for endurance events.


Have you seen any comparisons of those that pursue more fast-twitched based activities vs slow twitch?
"Physiology is all just propaganda and lies... all waiting to be disproven by the next study."
"I'm not a real doctor; But I am a real worm; I am an actual worm." - TMBG

ajz07
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by ajz07

I'm not up with the lingo, I sadly had to google "iirc"...
all endurance athletes leak troponin after they race, young or old. Most people will clear it out very fast, and the younger the faster. Whether it affects people is likely secondary to genetic propensity, but age is one of those things that likely increases the risk (sadly it seems to increase the risk of pretty much everything).

I'm not a physiologist, so I dont know of studies comparing fast-twitch to slow-twitch. I am sure they have been done, but I could not venture a guess as to the results. I will say that in general endurance athletes get a bad wrap. Take marathoners for example (where far more research has been done than in cyclists). Everyone hears of one or two deaths in a marathon and gets freaked out..."oh you shouldnt do it, you could die"..."dont you know how dangerous that is". Interestingly a relatively recent study looked at people dying from arrhythmias/ sudden cardiac death and found that the rates of it happening in a marathon were less than sports such as basketball, soccer, etc... only thing is so many people go do a marathon that it seems more prevalent. I would assume this is also true of cycling. Also, when you look at closing down the roads for a marathon (or a bike race) it keeps people in cars off those roads and actually is safer for the population as a whole. Because in the time the roads are closed there are in general fewer deaths than if there were cars on those roads and all the resultant accidents. I have always found that very amusing.

not quite what you asked, but the closest I could come.

artray
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by artray

Tapeworm wrote:http://sweatscience.com/the-incredible-unaging-triathlete/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Ok, its a triathlete, but the MRI gives a very clear example why it's a real good idea to keep exercising till the day you die.

(MRI has to be one of the coolest bits of kit out there, x-rays seem rather antiquated next to them.)


When you say exercise till the day you die, can I have time off to watch the telly and eat some chocolate or will I die a bit quicker than you because of the break I took watching telly and eating chocolate ?
Can you tell me what exercise to do when I take a dump?

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devinci
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by devinci

smart...ass...

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