I don't know you but Elizabeth says that your are very smart and athletic, which why is why your response to his article comes as a shock to me. Mark (the author of the article “was” an accomplished runner posting a 2hr and 11min marathon time to insinuate that he had bad running form is pretty wild assumption. I have to disagree on that part of your reply; those times are only accomplished with proper running form and an amazing engine. You also said that running is also bad for you, I think that this should be corrected to and say that extended periods of running can and will be detrimental to you as a whole. Running is the most natural movement that the human body can perform as opposed to ride a bike for several hours. ( un-natural position ) Which I use to do and is amazing but in comparison is quite a bit more detrimental that running.
1) Aerobic type exercise was basically used by hunter gathers for moving vast distances in order to find food when the surrounding resources where scarce and was done at very intensities. The weekend hammer fest that cyclist, triathletes and endurance-crazed folks do to somehow feel “alive” is quite hazardous to your health. Here is why according to Gary Taube’s Science award winning author of Good Calories, Bad Calories. Endurance based efforts of such an extent require vast amounts of Carbs (perptuem, endurox, Gu) which only serve to spike our insulin on such a repetitive basis that several different conditions occur in the human body that are known as metabolic disease or syndrome X. for eg
Diabetes
Heart Failure
Erectile Dysfunction
Weight gain (I know you have seen the athletes who work out constantly but are still fat)
Cancer (there is an unexplainable amount of cancer in the endurance athlete society.
Lowered Testosterone levels ( lowered sex drive etc. )
2) Excessive endurance speeds up cell activity far beyond what it should be resulting in premature aging.
I really can go on and on about the dangers excessive aerobic training but you are smart man (and I hate preaching). I once was an Iron-man athlete thinking that was panacea for optimum health only to experience muscle wasting and constant fatigue. I am not saying that all endurance training is wrong but it not what we designed for and going against the nature tends to have negative effect.
Check these out
www.proteinpower.com (very important research on Evolutionary fitness) he is seventy and looks forty
