HOW TOO MUCH EXERCISE CAN KILL YOU

[Dstew]

The rest of the subtitle is: and what you can do to protect your heart.

A bit of a spoiler alert, the subtitle should have actually been "How too much exercise may damage the heart of extreme athletes who participate at a high level for decades" but that may not sell as many books.

The Haywire Heart.

It was written by three endurance athletes with a background in cardiology and two of whom suffered endurance exercise induced arrhythmia.

I bought this book and could not put it down.

We have all read the alarming headlines such as the subtitle of this book warning that if you run a marathon you will die. The authors of this book have written that is does happen but about as rarely as whose suggest such headlines are needlessly alarmist. That many of these individuals had a genetic defect that could not have been detected or had been smoking, obese their entire life, find running, get into shape but the years of accumulated damage has taken it toll.

Micah True is one well known example of an otherwise very healthy individual who likely died from heart damage caused by his ultra running. But again, these are very rare cases.

The main message is that although Arrhythmia [& associated tachycardia as a warning sign] can cause the very rare death, what seems to be growing issue is non-lethal arrhythmia. The authors go on a great length showing that there is growing research that ties this heart condition to extreme endurance participation. Depending upon the study, the faster one completes an endurance event or the number of times one participates, there is 5 times or 30% chance higher risk of arrhythmia. In the extreme cases of non-lethal, surgery is required. In all cases, a lifestyle change is required so that one cannot push themselves to a point where tachycardia will kick in. The very rough guide seems to be limiting one to an hour and keeping the heart rate down.

The "good news" is that this affection seems to be restricted to those high dose athletes who have pushed themselves for decades. The authors suggest that exercise is medicine. But as with any medicine, there is a proper dose and exceeding that for too long can cause significant side affects. n this case, damage to the heart. They then go on to discuss the issue of addiction to exertion and how many people who have such an addiction also have low self esteem. The problem is that people with low self esteem also tend to have issues with inflammation, etc and thus there is an additive impact upon the heart.

What I found most interesting in this book was the second part of the subtitle, "what you can do to protect your heart" had very little discussion. But then again, it may not be that complicated. The simple message is do not over do it. The to ensure that, they are recommending a heart rate monitor. That if your heart rate starts to approach the tachycardia level - abnormally high heart rate - the solution is to slow down and to take some time off to rest and recover. Other signs of labored breathing and sudden lose of power that is unexpected.

Although they also conclude even this very small group of athletes who continue to exercise and push themselves too hard that most of them will never experience any heart issues, the research on this continues. One factor is that this "group" is starting to get older and now just coming to an age where this affliction may strike. They cannot say what is "too much" and when someone may have passed the point of no return where rest and recovery do not reset the heart.

I bought this book as I have been diagnosed with the "athlete's heart" and thus that is a risk factor for me. And in December, at the end of a long run, I was pushing hard to make some lights and frankly to finish a miserable run and my heart started to race. My heart rate was alarmingly high for me and based upon my past experiences as this was one of the few times I remembered to put on the heart strap for a run. I did not have any issues breathing and the last kilometer I ran was one of the fastest of that run so reading this book did reassure me that I had not done any major damage on that particular run. However, if there was even the slightest doubt, the smallest of reservations about my pledge to myself never to run another marathon, this book has completely erased those thoughts.