Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Cardio fitness is a strong, consistent predictor of morbidity and mortality

bjsm.bmj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

391–400 of 556 posts

Re: Cardio fitness is a strong, consistent predictor of morbidity and mortality

#391

Post by andreareina »

keybored wrote: post #266

Some of my peers are deep into running. I don’t get it. Running is sometimes fun for me but most often painful. Then I overheard one of them (the fittest) say to a budding runner that he [should] do mostly easy sessions. Okay what’s easy to him? He said that so slow that it can feel awkward and unnatural. What? Then I searched around and found out about Zone 2 and how you should do most of your work in that zone when…

For cycling you don't need the talk test, it should just feel easy. My breathing isn't elevated, my legs can feel there's resistance but there's no strain. Feel free to go 25 minutes on 5 minutes off, that really helps with the saddle comfort.

Re: Cardio fitness is a strong, consistent predictor of morbidity and mortality

#392

Post by Mawr »

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #320
AbbeSomething wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds ridiculous until you go to Amsterdam see that few wear helmets there. And everyone is cycling. They might be more inclined to cycle because they don’t need to wear a helmet. After years of cycling with helmet you get so used to it and it doesn’t bother you. But how many skip the bike because they never got used to wearing a helmet?

Biking in Amsterdam is leagues safer then biking in most places in the US, though. The risks are different. Helmets aren't as important if most of your crashes are going to be with another low-speed, mostly-soft bodied cyclist. Traffic and pedestrians are pretty separated and you have your own lanes to cycle in. I'm also pretty sure that a lot of biking is convenient: The local grocery store is just a short bike ride…

Just remember not to get lulled into a false sense of security just because you're wearing a helmet. PPE is by far the least effective safety precaution.

If you have to ride alongside cars, make sure you practice defensive riding.

Re: Cardio fitness is a strong, consistent predictor of morbidity and mortality

#393

Post by amanaplanacanal »

zknill wrote: post #390
danielbln wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been streak running (so running at least a mile per day with no exceptions, mostly 5ks during the week, 10-20k on weekends) for almost 8 years (2817 days). The single best tip I give to everyone is "slow down! run slow!" Of course, almost no-one adheres to it unless they are already well practiced. It's just deeply ingrained in peoples heads that "only if it's hard or painful it must work". Then people check out…

Two things: 1. You want to land on the mid-foot. Heel-striking puts a lot of pressure up you leg and joints as you are basically braking with every step. Forefoot strike puts a lot of pressure on your calf and achilles as you have to 'bounce' on every foot-strike to support your body weight. A mid-foot strike is the most efficient transition of energy into and back out of the ground for forward motion. Small steps he…

I’ve never understood what a mid-foot strike is. My foot has an arch. My heel touches the ground, ball of foot and toes touch the ground. Mid-foot doesn’t.

Re: Cardio fitness is a strong, consistent predictor of morbidity and mortality

#394

Post by maksimur »

reify wrote: post #324

Not sure about this one. When in my fourties I looked in the mirror one day and thought "my god man you have piled on a few pounds lately". I immediately went out and joined a gym for a bit of indoor running So, I went weekly for an hour or two. I thoroughly enjoyed it. My I'm not sure! I was happily running along on my treadmill one day, hreart rate at a constant 125bpm, whe suddenly there was an almighty commotion…

Something similar happened at the gym I went to years ago, although I wasn't there when it happened. The poor guy collapsed while lifting weights. WEIGHTS. I kept reluctantly going for a few days before stopping. Then on the radio I heard about a guy collapsing while running on the treadmill, just like your fellow gymgoer, and it was the last drop in the bucket that kept me from doing any exercise other than slow to moderately paced walks. The prospect of collapsing from something that should make me healthier terrifies me.

Re: Cardio fitness is a strong, consistent predictor of morbidity and mortality

#395

Post by [deleted] »

keybored wrote: post #266

Some of my peers are deep into running. I don’t get it. Running is sometimes fun for me but most often painful. Then I overheard one of them (the fittest) say to a budding runner that he [should] do mostly easy sessions. Okay what’s easy to him? He said that so slow that it can feel awkward and unnatural. What? Then I searched around and found out about Zone 2 and how you should do most of your work in that zone when…

[deleted]

Re: Cardio fitness is a strong, consistent predictor of morbidity and mortality

#396

Post by sdimitris »

Cardio fitness is an established predictor of mortality and longevity, but testing it requires a proper maximal-exercise treadmill test that one needs to reach their maximum heart rate (costly & potentially risky).

Modern wearables can estimate VO2max but they require some sort of workout data, potentially excluding the majority of the population (=sedentary people). Our recent research at the University of Cambridge developed and validated one of the first models for non-workout VO2max estimation. Paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41746-022-00719-1

TLDR: we can now estimate cardio-fitness just by tracking your everyday movement/heart rate

Re: Cardio fitness is a strong, consistent predictor of morbidity and mortality

#397

Post by porknubbins »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #393
zknill wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Two things: 1. You want to land on the mid-foot. Heel-striking puts a lot of pressure up you leg and joints as you are basically braking with every step. Forefoot strike puts a lot of pressure on your calf and achilles as you have to 'bounce' on every foot-strike to support your body weight. A mid-foot strike is the most efficient transition of energy into and back out of the ground for forward motion. Small steps he…

I’ve never understood what a mid-foot strike is. My foot has an arch. My heel touches the ground, ball of foot and toes touch the ground. Mid-foot doesn’t.

To me its more like you should strike with the forefoot but with the foot almost flat (as opposed to running like on tiptoes) so it feels as if you are instantly rolling onto the mid part of the shoe. Or put slightly differently- the middle of the shoe is what catches the groud first as it moves backwards relative to your overall direction of travel. There was a whole huge thing about barefoot running but doing miles of it on grass really did help me retrain as a former heel striker.

Re: Cardio fitness is a strong, consistent predictor of morbidity and mortality

#398

Post by naveen99 »

keybored wrote: post #266

Some of my peers are deep into running. I don’t get it. Running is sometimes fun for me but most often painful. Then I overheard one of them (the fittest) say to a budding runner that he [should] do mostly easy sessions. Okay what’s easy to him? He said that so slow that it can feel awkward and unnatural. What? Then I searched around and found out about Zone 2 and how you should do most of your work in that zone when…

You can improve cardiac fitness by just walking an hour a day. the top distance runners are at bmi of 19 or lower. longevity is maximized at bmi of 26.

Re: Cardio fitness is a strong, consistent predictor of morbidity and mortality

#399

Post by ab71e5 »

keybored wrote: post #266

Some of my peers are deep into running. I don’t get it. Running is sometimes fun for me but most often painful. Then I overheard one of them (the fittest) say to a budding runner that he [should] do mostly easy sessions. Okay what’s easy to him? He said that so slow that it can feel awkward and unnatural. What? Then I searched around and found out about Zone 2 and how you should do most of your work in that zone when…

I've heard the same thing, but for cycling. However I wonder if that is not mostly for people who train much more than a normal person, like a pro or your ultra marathon friends.

I understood the idea was that by running / cycling mostly in zone 2, you can put in more distance / time as you can recover more easily. It would not be possible to bike 30 hours in a week in zone 3, you would trash yourself.

But for someone like me, biking like 6-8 hours a week, I could easily do a lot of higher intensity, recovery time is not a bottleneck, other obligations in life are. So I really wonder if that still applies if you're only running / biking a few hours per week?

Re: Cardio fitness is a strong, consistent predictor of morbidity and mortality

#400

Post by jimhefferon »

ktosobcy wrote: post #295
keybored wrote: post #266

Some of my peers are deep into running. I don’t get it. Running is sometimes fun for me but most often painful. Then I overheard one of them (the fittest) say to a budding runner that he [should] do mostly easy sessions. Okay what’s easy to him? He said that so slow that it can feel awkward and unnatural. What? Then I searched around and found out about Zone 2 and how you should do most of your work in that zone when…

I do love running and indeed it's better to jog slowly for longer time... though, to avoid injuries - please do exercises before and after because you can easily injure your (lower-)back and knees (talking from experience, chronic lower-back pain after ~20y of running…)

Just a note to encourage you to see a physical therapist, before deciding that there's nothing to do. I've been a jogger since 1971, started having back pain all the time. A physical therapist gave me 15 minutes worth of exercises everyday. Pain gone. Good luck!
Post reply on HN