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

bjsm.bmj.com

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

#511

Post by sn9 »

terhechte wrote: post #277
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 watch all streaming shows on a rowing machine with not-so-high speed and not-so-high resistance. The show keeps me entertained and sometimes I even forget that I'm rowing. Previously I did that with an iPad 12.9" next to the machine, but I've just started watching shows on the Quest 3 and that's way better.

Doing this with a treadmill is honestly a gamechanger if you can't or don't want to do cardio outside (e.g., safety issues, heat, bad weather, etc.)

Even just walking on an incline can get your heart rate into the right zone so you get cardiovascular benefits while being so low in fatigue that you can get a lot of volume in.

Eventually your fitness will increase such that you'll run out of incline and speeds you can walk and you'll have to jog to stay in the zone.

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

#512

Post by sn9 »

JeremyNT wrote: post #443
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 think conventional wisdom is "zone 2 for fitness / endurance, zone 3+ for performance." The interesting thing about this meta-analysis is it's discussing "baseline cardiorespiratory fitness" which - as I understand it - does correlate with vo2max. As I understand it you can increase vo2max with exactly the type of training you are describing. Long efforts at zone2 can improve vo2 max, but the best improvements invo…

V02 max is correlated with good health outcomes precisely because it's a proxy for cardiovascular health and fitness. Seeking to improve V02 max with hacks for health benefits is like trying to improve grip strength (a proxy for strength) to improve health.

You can sustainably improve your cardiovascular health by just slowly increasing your volume of work done at 120-150 bpm over time. Say start with a program like Couch to 5k, then slowly add a day of light jogging here and there, adding 5 minutes here and there, until you're jogging 30+ miles per week.

If you want to more "optimally" improve your cardiovascular fitness, after building an aerobic base as above for 12+ weeks, you can introduce a high intensity session to get some of the unique benefits of those, but your low intensity steady state zone 2 stuff should remain at least 80% of your time spent endurance training.

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

#513

Post by Wieldable4640 »

jajko wrote: post #363
Broken_Hippo wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yes this is annoying in all these same debates which point to Netherland / Denmark - the infrastructure elsewhere is just not there. Lanes shared with cars (or just taking away from car lane so no normal cars fits in anymore) isn't a solution, just adding friction danger zone. Or dedicated bicycle lanes wide enough for a single row of cyclists, if even that. Also look at those 'old' basic bikes they use there, you do…

Dutch bicycle infrastructure didn’t just happen, our postwar governments were all set on building car infrastructure. They were even planning to demolish huge parts of old Amsterdam to build a highway right through the city. It took two decades of protest and a lot of traffic deaths before the government started the development of dedicated bicycle infrastructure in the 1980’s. You can read more here: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/may/05/amsterdam-bic...

Amsterdam’s answer to faster vehicles is to move them to the main road with other faster traffic. Although it is now moving to slow down nearly all traffic inside the city to a 30km/h limit, which will improve cyclist safety a lot.

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

#514

Post by sn9 »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #248
Mathnerd314 wrote: post #123

The relationship isn't linear, you can see in https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/54/20/1195#sec-16 that above 2200 MET-minutes/week there is increased cancer risk which outweighs the cardiovascular benefits. Now admittedly it is a very weak correlation, and MET measurement is imprecise, but I think it is safe to say that there are risks associated with over-exercising and while being in shape is good, being a ultra-maratho…

> 2200 MET-minutes/week is about 3 hours of 8mph running per week Wow, that is a lot of exercise for the average person. That would be 30 mins per day, six days a week. Again, I don't think 99% of people can sustain this for a more than a few months.

99% of people could probably build up to it easily with consistent training.

That's only 24 miles per week of running.

Most people could probably get to that level of fitness within a year.

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

#515

Post by sn9 »

jimt1234 wrote: post #167

Sorta related: My boomer mother is experiencing cognitive decline, probably the early stages of dementia. Her doctor said that as we age, blood vessels in the brain can get starved for blood and eventually dry up, making them useless. This is the biological explanation of her loss of memory and difficulty thinking. I asked if there's anything that can be done to at least slow this decline. She said the best medicine…

You can see the physical activity guidelines mentioned here: https://www.barbellmedicine.com/blog/where-should-my-priorit...

Note that these are minimums and that there's really no ceiling on getting benefits in the literature so long as you increase volume and intensity in a sustainable way and are eating and sleeping enough to sufficiently recover.

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

#516

Post by sn9 »

busymom0 wrote: post #4

Slightly related: I have been engaging in powerlifting/weightlifting for over a decade. In my initial years, I was in the "just do weights, don't need cardio" camp. However, around 2018, I started doing cardio mostly to cut body weight as I wanted to hit my personal bests on squats, deadlifts, and bench at a lower body weight. I personally experienced that my weights moved much better, especially when I was doing mor…

The Barbell Medicine podcast has a three-part series on cardio you should check out.

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

#517

Post by sn9 »

8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #79

What’s the best way to accurately measure one’s VO2 max, or at least ballpark it sufficiently so that you can track improvement over time without it being lost in measurement noise?

It's cheaper and more useful to just track something like your 5k time over time.

If it's meaningfully improving from year to year, you're improving all the things you care about.

(The best way to improve that is to slowly increase your volume of cardiovascular training over time, with at least 80% being zone 2 work.)

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

#518

Post by sn9 »

kamaal wrote: post #144

Not sure how true this is, I heard in the Joe Rogan podcast, cardio vascular fitness, like the extreme kind correlates with nearly the entire disease spectrum. It doesn't apply to something like 'acts of god' type things like Cancer or COVID. But it seems to be the best bet against aging, and other diseases. My favorite exercise in this regard is Swimming and Kettlebell training. Disclaimer: This is not an endorsemen…

Rogan's a gullible moron.

Go to people who know what they're talking about like the Barbell Medicine podcast for evidence-based fitness recommendations.

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

#519

Post by alex-korr »

Volume trumps everything for cycling/running - these are low skill so to speak sports. 60 mpw for 18 weeks will get most people into a Boston qualifying time. Zone 1/2 also has the advantage of lowering the risk of injury, which is critical for volume.

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

#520

Post by firethief »

chaorace wrote: post #468
Workaccount2 wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For HN's that want to get active, I cannot suggest getting a (higher tier) Garmin watch enough. I know you have the money so just drop the $800. It's stats on stats on stats and essentially creates a "character health" panel for your own body. Charts, metrics, real time tracking and exportable data. There are achievement badges and social connections if that's your thing too (good for you and your SO). For me, being…

It's not about the money, man. At a price like $800 you could hire out a personal trainer for 3 months of twice weekly sessions. No way some wrist gadget is going to do the average computer weenie more good than receiving regularly scheduled and personally tailored training regimens.

I don't know what kind of computer weenies you know but speaking for myself: needing to interact with someone to get exercise would add a major hurdle for me. OTOH, I'm really getting in to minmaxing myself in Garmin...
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