Live data from Hacker News

How Strenuous Exercise Affects Our Immune System

nytimes.com

11–20 of 190 posts

Re: How Strenuous Exercise Affects Our Immune System

#11

This article doesnt make mention of my workout where I lift something heavy 1 time. I had the idea that I wanted to reduce time in the gym, so I used the potential energy equation PE= M g h I'm not getting any taller, so the only thing I could change was either the reps or mass of weight moved. I made it my goal to lift heavy weights so I'd only need to deadlift 1 time and be able to pig out. TBH, it works, I lose 1…

[deleted]

Re: How Strenuous Exercise Affects Our Immune System

#12
post #9

I gotta stash this one away. I often refer to the disaster of 20th century health science as scientists repeatedly gathering a single point of data and then drawing a line (or hyperplane) though it, but this is a great article clearly demonstrating an example of that, and how plausible it all seemed at the time. (Not that it's a trend limited to the 20th century. But it seems to me to have been extremely bad in the h…

I imagine the 20th century was the worst time for it because we had more sophisticated data collection and analysis methods, but failed to recognize our own inadequacies when using those tools to draw conclusions.

Kind of like social media algorithms today.

Re: How Strenuous Exercise Affects Our Immune System

#13
My personal experience with long (100miles+) cross-country mtb riding (with lots of climbing) is that in fact, catching a cold after such a strenuous ride is way more common than the base rate. This is also the experience reported by most professional cyclists (check TdF reports).

My under-researched model of how this happens, is that there is a lot of tear-and-wear in the muscles where the effort is happening, which leads to inflammation, and that's where the white-blood cells might end up.

Re: How Strenuous Exercise Affects Our Immune System

#14

This article doesnt make mention of my workout where I lift something heavy 1 time. I had the idea that I wanted to reduce time in the gym, so I used the potential energy equation PE= M g h I'm not getting any taller, so the only thing I could change was either the reps or mass of weight moved. I made it my goal to lift heavy weights so I'd only need to deadlift 1 time and be able to pig out. TBH, it works, I lose 1…

[deleted]

Re: How Strenuous Exercise Affects Our Immune System

#15

This article doesnt make mention of my workout where I lift something heavy 1 time. I had the idea that I wanted to reduce time in the gym, so I used the potential energy equation PE= M g h I'm not getting any taller, so the only thing I could change was either the reps or mass of weight moved. I made it my goal to lift heavy weights so I'd only need to deadlift 1 time and be able to pig out. TBH, it works, I lose 1…

For a normal person, unless you're extremely tall or in a very considerable amount of PEDs, you will have a high body fat doing this.

Re: How Strenuous Exercise Affects Our Immune System

#16

The standout quote for me: "[immune cells] moved elsewhere, migrating to the animals’ guts or lungs, portions of the body that might be expected to need extra immune help after hard exercise". Rapidly producing immune cells during exercise, then letting them (and more) die off would be a baffling response. But pumping them into the lungs (because you've been breathing hard through your mouth) and gut (for when you ma…

Also: "Statistically, their [marathon runners] odds of becoming sick were about the same as for anyone else in the race’s host city."

Re: How Strenuous Exercise Affects Our Immune System

#17

This article doesnt make mention of my workout where I lift something heavy 1 time. I had the idea that I wanted to reduce time in the gym, so I used the potential energy equation PE= M g h I'm not getting any taller, so the only thing I could change was either the reps or mass of weight moved. I made it my goal to lift heavy weights so I'd only need to deadlift 1 time and be able to pig out. TBH, it works, I lose 1…

Found the fatty ;)

Ok, seriously.... math: if you eat 3000 kcal per day and lose 1 lb per week, you're burning 3500 kcal per day. This is quite a lot. It's near impossible unless you work out a lot and are veeeery muscular... or are impossibly tall... or, well, fat. (Or a combination of those.)

Take me for comparison: I am 187cm (6'1ish) tall and weigh 75kg (165 lbs), pretty much smack in the middle of the "normal weight" range. I like running, do about 50km (30 miles) per week. I count calories and let my wrist watch measure my energy expenditure 24/7. On rest days (mostly sedentary), I burn about 2100 kcal. To get up to 3400, I have to do some sort of hard run and some lighter activity in addition, or do a long run (18km+).

Now I'm not everybody of course, but you can't be that abnormal, right? So I'm not buying your numbers.

Re: How Strenuous Exercise Affects Our Immune System

#18
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you go run (hunt) if there is still stuff (food) in your gut.

Best to hunt when you are loaded up on fuel. Don't want to be hunting when energy is low as you will most likely be less successful as your focus, patience, and response times will all be lower. Hunting isn't like going to the store, success isn't guaranteed.

That is why you hunt when you are "out of fuel": you can try to hunt just after you eat, but when you fail you get to try again while "out of fuel". (Out of fuel in quotes - presumably the body has enough energy stores for a few more hunts even when it didn't find anything to eat the day before.)

Re: How Strenuous Exercise Affects Our Immune System

#19
post #13

My personal experience with long (100miles+) cross-country mtb riding (with lots of climbing) is that in fact, catching a cold after such a strenuous ride is way more common than the base rate. This is also the experience reported by most professional cyclists (check TdF reports). My under-researched model of how this happens, is that there is a lot of tear-and-wear in the muscles where the effort is happening, which…

While my (running) experience is similar, I alao believe it's possible to over-train. That is, it wasn't a single event that did the wearing down. The single big event is what finalized the lowering of the immunity threshold.

So that looks like the fault of the ends (read: the event) was actually led by the means (training).

Re: How Strenuous Exercise Affects Our Immune System

#20

This article doesnt make mention of my workout where I lift something heavy 1 time. I had the idea that I wanted to reduce time in the gym, so I used the potential energy equation PE= M g h I'm not getting any taller, so the only thing I could change was either the reps or mass of weight moved. I made it my goal to lift heavy weights so I'd only need to deadlift 1 time and be able to pig out. TBH, it works, I lose 1…

Considering the article example is a marathon (26.2 miles, burns ~2600 calories) and your example is deadlifting (4 sets of 8 deadlifts @ 175 kilograms burns ~100 calories - equivalent of running .5 miles).. I'd define this test case as 1.9% as 'Strenuous'.

What about increase in RMR after building more muscle mass?
Post reply on HN