Chronic cardio is forcing your body to kill you

meli_medina

Wow, what a great sales pitch for crossfit.

If you mean that it was a great sales pitch in that it was the stupidest thing I've read all day and it makes me want to beat my head into a wall for wasting my time reading it... then sure! I agree.

JoanB5

Um obviously the author of this article has no idea how the endocrine system actually works. Fear, i.e. being chased by a lion, begins in the brain. Your brain is clever enough to know the difference between lion and exercise and can regulate cortisol release accordingly. Obviously, anything that causes stress leads to cortisol release, but for many people who run frequently, or exercise frequently, exercise is a means of stress reduction and can help to reduce excess cortisol. Yes, people who run marathons are likely to have less muscle, not because they are killing their bodies but because they train for maximum cardio efficiency and only do minimal strength training because strength training does not help with their goals.

Glad to see that people on here have not been sucked in by this. Always be skeptical

Thank you. You read my mind. And, I've seen some runners who look beast. All depends on whether or not they cross train, and what their training goals are. I've yet to see one I thought looked "emaciated".

Doodlewhopper

Interesting that palaeo/primal diet people can get palaeoanthropology so wrong.

It's believed that Homo erectus ran the equivalent of marathons in order to hunt meat. Running/cardio does *NOT* equal being chased by a lion!!!

Here's how homo erectus probably hunted... (some homo sapiens hunter-gatherers hunt this way, only with much more sophisticated weapons, which would mean that Homo erectus would have had to run longer as they only had rocks and pointy sticks as weapons, so would have found it a lot more difficult to inflict an injury on an animal it was hunting from a distance.)

You find a herd of animals, and start chasing one of the weaker ones. It runs away, and you can't catch it because humans can't run fast enough. (and you think if a lion started chasing a human they'd get away? LOL no. A human can't outrun a lion. The best chance it has against a lion is to fight it and kill it with a spear or for the other humans to intervene and throw rocks to chase the lion away). The animal escapes, but Homo erectus can track it down, following footprints and so on... it finds where the animal is hiding/resting, and chases it .... tracks it... chases it... tracks it.. chases it... (alternating jogging and sprinting for hours, in other words...) in modern Homo sapiens hunter-gatherers who have projectile weapons such as throwing spears, bows and arrows etc, this hunt lasts hours and they run the equivalent of a marathon or more. Homo erectus would have had to run longer to compensate for the lack of weapons other than stones and pointy sticks. This kind of hunting in modern hunter-gatherers is done at midday in the intense heat of the savannah, because humans can stay cool much more effectively than other mammals, due to having very little body hair and sweating over the whole body. The animal eventually is chased to the point that it dies of heat exhaustion, while the human has managed to stay cool. Homo erectus lived on the African savannah, so would also probably have hunted at midday.

This explains why humans have much less hair than other mammals and also why we're so good at endurance cardio. The fact we can run marathons is due to this. We evolved as long distance endurance runners and as persistence hunters. The fact that people can continue to do so much cardio while eating very few calories, is because this is how early humans hunted, so the body evolved to carry on doing lots of running even while the body starved (up to a point, because the body can only take so much starvation before breaking down) in the hope that running would lead to finally catching an animal and getting a decent amount of fat and protein to eat.

If there's an increased level of heart disease in people who run marathons and do loads of running, I'd question whether they have accounted for the fact that so many people do so much cardio while not eating properly, and those people are confounding the statistics. Maybe marathon runners should eat meat after they finish, so their body thinks they're succeeding at hunting and not failing.

The idea that "when you run long distances your body thinks you're being chased by a lion" is silly though. A lion would catch a human within a minute. If you're running long distances, your body thinks you're hunting.

I am not a fan of the whole crossfit thing, but it is pertinent to note: the hunting methodology you describe isn't the only or even the most logical one to have occurred. There was likely alot of sneaking up on prey, of lying in wait for prey, of using snares and traps, of driving prey into an ambush. And historical man would have done alot more load bearing work carrying possession and what not too. None of it is so very cut and dried.

Hello neighbor

<<There was likely alot of sneaking up on prey, of lying in wait for prey>>

And then the chase was on. Early man didnt have tools or hunting implements much less snares and traps; evidence supports that they did pursue prey until it fell due to heat and exhaustion.

tracieangeletti

In response to this topic, I am going to train lions using Crossfit. There will be no escape!

Bwaaaaahahahaha!!!:laugh:

CorvusCorax77

I think if people truly believe that we would all do drugs and be fat obviously we want to deter death as long as possible isn't tht why we are here?

I'm going to ignore the (very lengthy) ad for Crossfit.

But taking the above point, just because something is going to kill us eventually it doesn't mean everyone would want it to be by drugs or obesity!

Wanting to deter death is futile, none of us know how long we have and life can end at any time, with or without warning. Wanting to live a happy life, whatever it is that makes that happiness (such as with MFP either getting fitter or losing weight or both), is very worthwhile.

I want it to be drugs. I've always said that if I make it to 90, I'm going to pick up a heroin habit for the last couple years of my life.

^^ THAT is an EXCELLENT IDEA!

neandermagnon

Interesting that palaeo/primal diet people can get palaeoanthropology so wrong.

It's believed that Homo erectus ran the equivalent of marathons in order to hunt meat. Running/cardio does *NOT* equal being chased by a lion!!!

Here's how homo erectus probably hunted... (some homo sapiens hunter-gatherers hunt this way, only with much more sophisticated weapons, which would mean that Homo erectus would have had to run longer as they only had rocks and pointy sticks as weapons, so would have found it a lot more difficult to inflict an injury on an animal it was hunting from a distance.)

You find a herd of animals, and start chasing one of the weaker ones. It runs away, and you can't catch it because humans can't run fast enough. (and you think if a lion started chasing a human they'd get away? LOL no. A human can't outrun a lion. The best chance it has against a lion is to fight it and kill it with a spear or for the other humans to intervene and throw rocks to chase the lion away). The animal escapes, but Homo erectus can track it down, following footprints and so on... it finds where the animal is hiding/resting, and chases it .... tracks it... chases it... tracks it.. chases it... (alternating jogging and sprinting for hours, in other words...) in modern Homo sapiens hunter-gatherers who have projectile weapons such as throwing spears, bows and arrows etc, this hunt lasts hours and they run the equivalent of a marathon or more. Homo erectus would have had to run longer to compensate for the lack of weapons other than stones and pointy sticks. This kind of hunting in modern hunter-gatherers is done at midday in the intense heat of the savannah, because humans can stay cool much more effectively than other mammals, due to having very little body hair and sweating over the whole body. The animal eventually is chased to the point that it dies of heat exhaustion, while the human has managed to stay cool. Homo erectus lived on the African savannah, so would also probably have hunted at midday.

This explains why humans have much less hair than other mammals and also why we're so good at endurance cardio. The fact we can run marathons is due to this. We evolved as long distance endurance runners and as persistence hunters. The fact that people can continue to do so much cardio while eating very few calories, is because this is how early humans hunted, so the body evolved to carry on doing lots of running even while the body starved (up to a point, because the body can only take so much starvation before breaking down) in the hope that running would lead to finally catching an animal and getting a decent amount of fat and protein to eat.

If there's an increased level of heart disease in people who run marathons and do loads of running, I'd question whether they have accounted for the fact that so many people do so much cardio while not eating properly, and those people are confounding the statistics. Maybe marathon runners should eat meat after they finish, so their body thinks they're succeeding at hunting and not failing.

The idea that "when you run long distances your body thinks you're being chased by a lion" is silly though. A lion would catch a human within a minute. If you're running long distances, your body thinks you're hunting.

I am not a fan of the whole crossfit thing, but it is pertinent to note: the hunting methodology you describe isn't the only or even the most logical one to have occurred. There was likely alot of sneaking up on prey, of lying in wait for prey, of using snares and traps, of driving prey into an ambush. And historical man would have done alot more load bearing work carrying possession and what not too. None of it is so very cut and dried.

Later on, yes. Neanderthals hunted like that in the middle palaeolithic era, and these methods date back to maybe 600,000 years ago...... Homo erectus lived for well over a million years, going back almost 2 million years.

With lower palaeolithic technology, the methodologies you described are not really possible. What I described came first, long before the middle and upper palaeolithic methods you described. It's also very likely the case that in the Homo sapiens lineage (we evolved from Homo erectus in Africa) that the persistance hunting method has an unbroken tradition that goes right back to Homo erectus, and as we developed more sophisticated technology, we added in long range weapons to injure the prey at a distance and make the hunt shorter.... meanwhile in Europe, neanderthals evolved as short range/stealth hunters, killing very large animals at close range with thrusting spears. Homo sapiens sapiens (i.e. anatomically modern humans, who first appeared with upper palaeolithic culture about 60,000 years ago) were/are highly adaptable, capable of hunting in a huge range of different styles (this high level of adaptability is seen in the upper palaeolithic era only), including the Homo erectus style persistance hunting and many other styles, and fishing too, (though probably we don't have the physical strength for neanderthal style hunting). The !kung San are one modern hunter gatherer tribe that use persistance hunting as their main hunting technique, just like I described in my last post, only they use long range weapons to injure the animal in the process and make the hunt shorter.

The lower palaeolithic era went on for much, much longer than the middle or upper palaeolithic era, so lower palaeolithic hunting methods have shaped our physical evolution far more than middle or upper palaeolithic methods. The neanderthals were better adapted to short range/steath kind of hunting (i.e middle palaeolithic) but even they retained many characteristics of Homo erectus, so would have been capable of running marathons (though perhaps not in such extreme heat as they became cold adapted to withstand ice age winters in Europe) .... but we're (mostly) not descended from neanderthals. We're descended from Homo erectus via the African lineage of humans, where persistance hunting has possibly remained the predominant hunting method through most of our evolution, albeit with the addition of more sophisticated weapons and other sophisticated hunting techniques as we evolved into middle and upper palaeolithic levels of technology.

likitisplit

Interesting that palaeo/primal diet people can get palaeoanthropology so wrong.

It's believed that Homo erectus ran the equivalent of marathons in order to hunt meat. Running/cardio does *NOT* equal being chased by a lion!!!

Here's how homo erectus probably hunted... (some homo sapiens hunter-gatherers hunt this way, only with much more sophisticated weapons, which would mean that Homo erectus would have had to run longer as they only had rocks and pointy sticks as weapons, so would have found it a lot more difficult to inflict an injury on an animal it was hunting from a distance.)

You find a herd of animals, and start chasing one of the weaker ones. It runs away, and you can't catch it because humans can't run fast enough. (and you think if a lion started chasing a human they'd get away? LOL no. A human can't outrun a lion. The best chance it has against a lion is to fight it and kill it with a spear or for the other humans to intervene and throw rocks to chase the lion away). The animal escapes, but Homo erectus can track it down, following footprints and so on... it finds where the animal is hiding/resting, and chases it .... tracks it... chases it... tracks it.. chases it... (alternating jogging and sprinting for hours, in other words...) in modern Homo sapiens hunter-gatherers who have projectile weapons such as throwing spears, bows and arrows etc, this hunt lasts hours and they run the equivalent of a marathon or more. Homo erectus would have had to run longer to compensate for the lack of weapons other than stones and pointy sticks. This kind of hunting in modern hunter-gatherers is done at midday in the intense heat of the savannah, because humans can stay cool much more effectively than other mammals, due to having very little body hair and sweating over the whole body. The animal eventually is chased to the point that it dies of heat exhaustion, while the human has managed to stay cool. Homo erectus lived on the African savannah, so would also probably have hunted at midday.

This explains why humans have much less hair than other mammals and also why we're so good at endurance cardio. The fact we can run marathons is due to this. We evolved as long distance endurance runners and as persistence hunters. The fact that people can continue to do so much cardio while eating very few calories, is because this is how early humans hunted, so the body evolved to carry on doing lots of running even while the body starved (up to a point, because the body can only take so much starvation before breaking down) in the hope that running would lead to finally catching an animal and getting a decent amount of fat and protein to eat.

If there's an increased level of heart disease in people who run marathons and do loads of running, I'd question whether they have accounted for the fact that so many people do so much cardio while not eating properly, and those people are confounding the statistics. Maybe marathon runners should eat meat after they finish, so their body thinks they're succeeding at hunting and not failing.

The idea that "when you run long distances your body thinks you're being chased by a lion" is silly though. A lion would catch a human within a minute. If you're running long distances, your body thinks you're hunting.

I love you.

There are other physiological supports for this, detailed in the book "Born to Run"

I just read "New Rules of Lifting for Women" and it contains a lot of the same poppycock in a more condensed form - including the BS about our early ancestors. Thanks for calling this out.

likitisplit

This process, also endocrine related, is fully (and, in my opinion, best) covered by the Crossfit program.

Loooooool.

No wait.

Loooooooooooooooool.

Ok, I'm done.

The article has a kernel of truth in it however, just a kernel. It is true that long duration, steady state cardio at a low heart rate (the "fat burning zone") can turn your hormonal environment catabolic.

The Tremblay study on exercise duration on steroid hormone responses in men showed that this is more likely (although not necessarily will happen) around the 80 minute mark.

So what's the take away: be careful if your steady state session lasts more than 60 - 80 minutes (but lets not forget that if you are running outside where the terrain varies - hills anyone? - whether you actually fall into that will be questionable)

If it does last more than that time consider carb / glucose supplementation.

Chocolate milk!!!

likitisplit

In response to this topic, I am going to train lions using Crossfit. There will be no escape!

Let me know if you start taking applications.