Moderate exercise is best

rebecca_d35

...says a new study. Of course, as a 15-20-miler-per-week runner, I am delighted.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/06/moderation-as-the-sweet-spot-for-exercise/?hp

ahamm002

Directly from the article: "Whether and at what point more exercise becomes counterproductive remains uncertain."

It does make sense that decades of intense endurance exercise could cause a lot of wear and tear on your body though. But this probably only applies to hardcore endurance athletes.

Also, you have to take epidemiology studies with a grain of salt too. For all we know, the only reason more exercise is worse is b/c it increased the rate of skin cancer, or b/c many of the pro-atheletes used performance enhancing drugs or something.

BurtHuttz

I also read about a similar study (the study itself I couldn't find) which indicates that marathon and ultramarathon participation and training correlates with heart problems.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2154267/Excess-exercise-hurts-heart-cause-dangerous-long-term-harm-say-scientists.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Which probably shouldn't be surprising, when you consider that any sort of repetitive motion done long enough causes problems, let alone acting like an antelope but only using two legs.

iplayoutside19

I saw this study (well the article, I haven't read the actual study) yesterday and almost posted it here but didn't for a couple reasons. 1. People will take what this study says out of context to say things that aren't really true. 2. The percentage of MFPers, and people in general that this study applies to is very small. 3. In terms of things that can kill or hurt you driving is still a bigger threat to health than going on an extreme exercise binge.

That being said, I rarely exercise longer than an hour. Not because I'll hit the law of diminishing returns, but because I just don't have time for it. However, given unlimited time and recourses I would probably kill myself doing some physicly strenious activity and it would be so much cooler that sitting on the couch.