I’m no endurance athlete…. But this was interesting?

[BenThom-Wood]

I do exercise regularly, rather stupidly I swam for 2.5km 2 days ago then I saw this article & thought of all the exercise I’d done since the 90s….

bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-l...

[Hidden]

Sadly you can't turn the clock back, what's done is done. Everyone has done things they might later regret, and that includes activities that are, through research or similar, later found out to be not very good for you. I was a smoker in my teens and twenties then stopped, only to find over 40 years later that my occasional mild breathing problems might be COPD, linked to me smoking. Would I have been a smoker had I known then what I know now, certainly not, but there's not a lot I can do about it so I just accept it as part of life. So for your swim I assume nobody forced you to do it, and you probably enjoyed it, certainly for the challenge, its just co-incidence that you came across the article immediately after. Your only problem now, as I see it, and indeed for all those who do this sort of stuff, is to decide whether you are going to weigh up any potential risks associated with any future big swims on offer, against the buzz you might get from doing it whilst experiencing life.

[BenThom-Wood in reply to Hidden]

The past, Hidden , is a foreign country & I don’t live there anymore. I’m going back to the pool where I went pop in June ‘19 tomorrow as it holds #NoFear for me. I’ll still swim & cycle too. Walk often also. The article was just interesting to me. Stay cool mate.

[Hidden in reply to BenThom-Wood]

Good for you. That's what I would be doing. 👍

[Hidden]

Hello you and yes this is interesting but to be honest with you came as no great shock.

It has been known for years that “parts” of athletes {hips, knees etc} age very badly almost as if you have used up a life time of wear in a short time.

You only have to look at famous athletes/ sports persons of my youth to find this, and how sad that is.

So if it wears out joints etc it stands to reason that it must put the heart { and other internal organs} under the same sort of pressure.

I was and never will be in that bracket of fitness but I do {and did} maintain a certain level, but I would be very surprised if it caused any of my heart problems, but then who really knows.

As the article states:-

Dr Peter Swoboda emphasized that exercise is good for the heart, but warned that recent studies suggest that people who participate in long term endurance sport "could lose the health benefits of exercise"

Endurance is a big word that covers a lot.

[Ewloe]

Yes that’s interesting. There’s a BUT here though. It says the study participants are all men. This has been the case over the years in research on heart disease and they’ve then tried to use the results on women. More recently it’s been acknowledged there’s a genetic difference in the male and female heart through out life and in the way they respond to treatment. So I’m very disappointed this study is only on men. Before I had my heart attack and cardiac arrhythmia’s I was very fit. Exercising 4/5 times a week always pushing with it. There’s more women athletes out there today than ever why aren’t they being included in this study. Otherwise it won’t be certain the results can be applied for women. Thanks

[Ramilia in reply to Ewloe]

That was my very first thought about the article, Ewloe. It's very disappointing that they have chosen to study only men.

[Foxey2]

I did know about this and many endurance athletes are diagnosed with AFib so there is definitely a link there. I did wonder if it contributed to my own diagnosis as I previously ran 3-4 times a week and cycled often. My consultant said it was a possibility but no way of knowing for sure. I’m 50 and female with no underlying health conditions.

[JulianM]

I volunteered, I think, for the earlier BHF-funded study mentioned in the article, based at St George's Hospital, Tooting, in the Sports Cardiology team led by Prof Sanjay Sharma. He gave a very interesting 'Live and Ticking' presentation recently - linked on the BHF website - with the retired Olympic athlete Roger Black, which I strongly recommend to anyone interested in this subject.

The team at St George's have also run studies on female veteran athletes: I agree this is equally important and that results from men can't be transferred automatically to women. There may be some important ethnic differences here, notably between people of White European, Black West African, Black East African, and South Asian heritage, which also need to be taken into account.

My take on this is more positive: intense exercise for decades (I did Masters swimming for 10 years, added Marathon running for 10, triathlon for another 10...) leaves its mark on the heart - I have 'apical ventricular hypertrabeculation' - but the jury is out on whether this has any health significance, and there's no evidence it outweighs the proven health benefits of exercise, which are especially strong when people have heart and circulatory problems.

If you listen to Prof Sharma, you'll find out that even the rhythm disturbances which the Leeds study is focussed on may have different implications - and carry far less risk of stroke - when they happen in trained athletes than when they happen in the rest of us.

On the other hand, there are times when exercise may lead to health issues. My ascending aorta is seriously enlarged, probably due to a genetic connective tissue disorder, with some possibility that my sports history speeded this up. I was diagnosed by the sports cardiologists and advised to give up competitive sport, which was a big shock: however, they strongly recommended I continue to exercise.

When I get in the pool, 2,000m is my standard session - so no, I don't think 2.5K is foolish!

[JoN1970]

Hi keep doing what you are doing, I can't wait to get swim got a few weeks left! I am looking forward to getting back on my back in the next week or so ... I have really missed it. Thanks 😊

[JoN1970 in reply to JoN1970]

bike should have said.