Run to Stay Young

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/12/03/run-to-stay-young/

by papad • 12 years ago

202 116 12 years ago

well.blogs.nytimes.com

hf• 12 years ago

As the article referenced here is rather light, here is the actual paper of the mentioned study (open access): http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjourna..., and a slightly more informative report by the University of Colorado Boulder, http://www.colorado.edu/news/releases/2014/11/20/running-rea....

Conclusion from the paper:

  Running mitigates the age-related deterioration of walking
  economy whereas walking for exercise appears to have 
  minimal effect on the age-related deterioration in walking 
  economy.

Nicholas_C• 12 years ago

This is great if you're older and have the physical ability to run. I suspect that some of the non-runners can't run.

melling2• 12 years ago

I tried jogging over the summer for the first time in years, but my feet started hurting. It would take days to recover. I gave up after 2 months. It feels good but I seem prone to injury.

TulliusCicero• 12 years ago

It seems like the distinguishing factor is intensity, so it's likely you could substitute in some other higher-intensity workout that may be easier on the joints, like swimming.

increment_i• 12 years ago

After 30 years of running, I can attest to the irreversible damage caused to knees, shins, and other joints and ligaments due to running on paved and other man made surfaces. A good alternative as you get up in years is swimming and/or cycling or recumbent biking.

chatmasta4• 12 years ago

I ran 4 years of D1 cross country. Can confirm. The oft-repeated trope is "concrete is 12x harder than soft surface grass." Not sure how true that is or how the physics work, but stay away from roads. Run on the dirt on the side of them.

dazc• 12 years ago

And also avoid running downhill.

acadien• 12 years ago

Do you (or anybody) have evidence to support this? Genuinely curious since everything I've read shows that surface doesn't matter. I understand this result is counter-intuitive but I was under the impression its a well documented result.

elwell3• 12 years ago

I would rather run on a level surface even if it is harder. You can hurt your knee or ankle rather quickly running through some fields; but that's part of the experience I guess.

beaumartinez• 12 years ago

I've always heard a lot of this is due to improper running technique, since shoe technology shifted to a heavily-padded heel. This in turn made people more likely to land on the heel, which sends the shock right up the leg, into the knee.

Barefoot running, and less padded shoes, promote landing on the balls of your feet (as otherwise it's incredibly painful!). Landing on the balls of your feet allows your foot to reduce the force that gets shot up the leg.

elwell3• 12 years ago

Running barefoot on pavement in the city doesn't work very well. Every time I try it for a significant journey, I can barely walk for a week due to blisters and small glass fragments. Also, people, rightly, stare at me like I'm insane.

dont_be_mean2• 12 years ago

That's it. Learn to run on the balls of your feet. It reduces the shock to the knees by such an amount that I can't run in any other way now.

uberalex2• 12 years ago

All sports have complications. Swimmers can get shoulder issues and tendinitis (http://physioworks.com.au/Injuries-Conditions/Activities/swi...). Cyclists can suffer overuse injury, but also seem at risk of getting mown down by traffic (admittedly a general risk, but it seems a higher one for regular bike users) http://physioworks.com.au/Injuries-Conditions/Activities/cyc...

I suspect it's a matter of cross-training, of trying to do some compensating weight training, and luck.

perlpimp3• 12 years ago

I run and visit the gym without gym, gym gives me great posture. Working at the desk most of the day it is hard to keep muscles on your back to support yourself while running at least it is the case for me. Everyone has different diet, genetics...

djtriptych• 12 years ago

I ran pain-free for years on concrete in vibram toe shoes. I ended up convincing myself that one needs to re-learn how to run, but that it is indeed possible to run even on hard surfaces if your technique is efficient enough.

edit: An excellent video showing the subtleties of perfect form: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTMgIViinuQ

jsankey• 12 years ago

It's not clear that running makes joint problems any more likely, in general, see:

http://www.npr.org/2011/03/28/134861448/put-those-shoes-on-r...

For example, keeping joints active with weight bearing exercise reduces the likelihood of developing arthritis. As other comments have mentioned, a common problem is overtraining, and especially starting out too fast. Patience is required to build up the strength and technique required to maximise benefits while minimising the risk of injury.

huherto• 12 years ago

I got this when I got hurt. I love it.

http://www.elliptigo.com/

mbubb2• 12 years ago

Interesting... I am approaching 50 and have noticed a slight reduction in mobility. I have recently read articles about certain markers of mortality (or is morbitity the word here?) - like the ability to get up from the ground without using arms... or trying not to sit too much during the day. or trying to walk 10,000 steps (according to that dubious android app).

Particularly the 'idea of getting up from the floor without use of arms' made me think of certain simple motions that are hard for me. There is a Korean buddhist practice of 108 bows - I recently tried and got to about 25. (not just Korean - I should have said I learned it in a Korean context)

I am disturbed by the idea that there will come a day where I cant do "x" anymore, where x is running, drinking guinness or some other such activity.

Recently bought a block of training sessions at a gym and discovered stretching with the aid of hard plastic tubes or rollers that help stretch out areas of the body that are a bit hard to stretch otherwise. Hip flexors, trapezius (sp?), etc. This has greatly improved my mobility and has helped me do things which were hard to do before (shoulder presses, running) without pain.

Reading this article it made me think of how walking alone might not stretch out muscles in the same way as running (or swimming, rowing, etc).

"But researchers and older people themselves also have noted that walking ability tends to decline with age. Older people whose primary exercise is walking often start walking more slowly and with greater difficulty as the years pass, fatiguing more easily."

They don't explicitly talk about flexibilty and running but some form of stretching is somewhat implied. It might be interesting to see those possible correlations.

And I thought of the octo- (and maybe nono-) genarian Koreans who would briskly walk by me on the small mountains in Seoul on their way to a temple to throw down a few bows...

justrudd2• 12 years ago

If anyone wants a quick mobility routine...

http://phraktured.net/molding-mobility.html

I do a full round of the mobility work (15 reps and not the warmup section) every morning within 15 minutes of getting out of bed. It has done wonders for my mobility, and my attitude in the morning (not a morning person and doing this makes me less grumpy).

swah2• 12 years ago

Another exercise that is in vogue these days is foam rolling. I'm trying to see how it helps, but I'm not sure what kinds of changes I'd notice and after how many sessions.

snarkyturtle• 12 years ago

There lots of examples of older people still managing to be active. There's Fauja Singh, who ran a 10K at an age of 101: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/24/fauja-singh-last-ra...

And the world record holder for a pole vault (90+ years of age): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pX9h5PVNGaY

hcarvalhoalves• 12 years ago

77 year old grandma deadlifting 215 pounds:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2014/11/29/inspiration-na...

towelguy• 12 years ago

Last week I went mountain climbing (a 19,900 feet mountain) and one of the people there was a 71 years old man.

kolev4• 12 years ago

Didn't know that Sardinians and Okinawans were all runners...

plg• 12 years ago

isn't running absolutely horrible for one's joints (e.g. knees)?

not to mention the bowel issues

kolev4• 12 years ago

Cartilage is one of the few tissues that is not known to regenerate.

k-mcgrady2• 12 years ago

The joints issue was my first thought too. Could you explain the bowel point though? How does running effect this?

kolev4• 12 years ago

Runner's diarrhea [0].

[0] http://www.mayoclinic.org/runners-diarrhea/expert-answers/fa...

pg314• 12 years ago

AFAIK there is no evidence that running is bad for the knees. There is not enough research to draw firm conclusions, but a Stanford study (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2556152/) didn't find a higher incidence of osteoarthritis in runners (20%) vs non-runners (32%) after 18 years of running. There is selection bias in this study since the runners were self-selected.

The book 'Which comes first, cardio or weights' from A. Hutchinson offers one hypothesis in which running might protect the knees: by limiting weight gain with advancing age. Less weight means less stress on the joints.

SCAQTony• 12 years ago

NOPE - Show me a runner who is 50 and he looks like 70. Show a swimmer who is 70 and he looks like 50. At late middle age running is dangerous.

kazinator4• 12 years ago

Ah, the 70 at 50 problem is due to years of roaming around outdoors without using sunscreen, not due to running.

pc2g4d2• 12 years ago

The conclusions drawn in the article don't seem to match the study in question. The participants were not experimentally assigned to be either walkers or runners; rather, they had themselves already selected whether or not to be walkers or runners. This implies that the large proportion of older adults who are neither walkers nor runners are not represented in this study. It also makes it impossible to determine the direction of causality in the correlations discovered. Did people's running cause them to be healthier? Or did people's being healthier cause them to be runners?

CapitalistCartr• 12 years ago

Or neither; people who run regularly tend to practice other healthy habits. Or maybe it's mostly genetics.

pc2g4d2• 12 years ago

Good call---confounders lurk!

freefrancisco• 12 years ago

Even if the study had been conducted properly, this only addresses walking vs running. That running is better than walking doesn't necessarily mean that people should go and start running. How about running vs lifting weights, running vs yoga, or running vs tai chi?

kangax• 12 years ago

A much more interesting question indeed.

There's been numerous (human and animal) studies showing benefits of strength training for elderly. Ergo-log covers [1] those [2] all [3] the time [4].

Then there's evidence [5] suggesting that higher calorie burning is directly associated with reduced death rate.

And a specific quote on muscle mass:

"A recent theory suggests that developed muscle mass results in considerable emissions of anti-inflammatory and life-extending signal substances. That's why muscular strength is believed to protect against cancer and why strong men are thought to live longer."

(links to studies confirming those claims are in the article)

The thing about running (if we're talking about traditional jogging) is that it does poor job at burning calories. It's a movement that becomes "familiar" very quick (and so becomes easier, according to Principle of Adaptation) and the one in which it's difficult to increase intensity. You also don't develop muscle mass when jogging, which would contribute to higher metabolic rate and reduced chance of injury.

Everything suggests that strength training (whether it's bodyweight, yoga, suspension trainer, or barbells and kettlebells) combined with proper supplementation is the best bang for your buck.

[1] http://www.ergo-log.com/over-seventies-benefit-more-from-pow...

[2] http://www.ergo-log.com/combination-strength-training-green-...

[3] http://www.ergo-log.com/over-nineties-still-react-to-strengt...

[4] http://www.ergo-log.com/cholesterolmuscles.html

[5] http://www.ergo-log.com/caloriemortality.html

halfcat• 12 years ago

Or did people's being healthier cause them to be runners?

There was another study that showed that people who take up mixed martial arts in their late 40s are healthier than people of the same age who only walk [1]. No word on whether genetics plays a role.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herschel_Walker

thesz3• 12 years ago

Martial arts are 1) interval training in disguise and 2) strength endurance training in disguise.

Kata practicing is an exercise in explosive power over long period (several minutes), thus strength endurance training.

All MA training I attended interspersed action with rest. Thus interval training.

suprgeek• 12 years ago

We need to be wary of drawing the conclusions drawn here - the big tip-off is this sentence from the paper: "...Runners self-reported running for exercise three or more times per week for at least 30 minutes per bout and for at least six months prior to the study. "

A self-reported group of old runners can apparently walk more efficiently than a self-reported group of old walkers...but the runners were fit enough to run and sustain running to begin with!!

So older people who were fit enough to sustainably run for 6+ months were fitter than older folks who (were possibly not as fit) but choose to walk?

Horrible study...randomly assign fit older people to one or other group, let them run or walk for 6+ months - measure. Reverse the groups again measure.

lightcatcher• 12 years ago

I think the study is assigning health benefits to "being a runner" rather than just "running". It's likely that the selected group of runners who had been running regularly for 6 months had been running regularly for much much longer, perhaps 10+ years. I'm definitely not an expert on the subject, but I don't know how many people are in good enough shape at age 60+ to start running, and I imagine most people running at age 60+ started running no later than their mid 50's.

The real thing you want to control for is the health of the runners and the walkers at the time the runners started running.

cdoxsey• 12 years ago

In 1977 Jim Fixx published the best-selling book "The Complete Book of Running" which popularized running for sport, and purported to demonstrate its health benefits - including increased longevity.

7 years later he died of a heart attack while jogging at the age of 52.

His death doesn't mean running is a bad idea - a single anecdote is statistically insignificant - but perhaps it can remind us that nothing we do can guarantee a long and healthy life.

All too often we take a mildly correlated statistic, give it a hand-wavy air of "science", and then pronounce it as a set-in-stone moral absolute. How much of the received wisdom about healthy lifestyles that you were taught has been shown to be completely wrong? I don't doubt that in 3 years there will be another New York times article, demonstrating why running is actually terrible for you, and you should never do it no matter what age you are.

Growing up in a secular society ancient religions can seem awful strange: why did people worship stone statues and sacrifice to them? Did they really believe all that effort did anything?

But perhaps our modern obsession with "healthiness" reflects the same underlying human motivation: incapable of accepting the reality of our own deaths we grasp at anything to try and give ourselves the illusion of control. Is eating an organic strawberry in the hopes of living longer really any different than performing a ritualistic dance in the hopes of bringing rain?

imanaccount2474• 12 years ago

How much of the received wisdom about healthy lifestyles that you were taught has been shown to be completely wrong?

Virtually none of it.

I don't doubt that in 3 years there will be another New York times article, demonstrating why running is actually terrible for you, and you should never do it no matter what age you are.

I do doubt that. I doubt it very much.

Is eating an organic strawberry in the hopes of living longer really any different than performing a ritualistic dance in the hopes of bringing rain?

That seems like really desperately grasping at ways to dismiss things you don't like. Exercise is good, even if you don't want it to be.

MrJagil• 12 years ago

> Virtually none of it.

What? Milk? Multi-vitamins? Stretching? This stuff is discussed heavily; I do not know enough about these things to weigh in on validity, but if nothing else, these discussions might be very symptomatic.

cscurmudgeon• 12 years ago

A little bit of searching shows that "healthiness" does in fact lead to longer lives.

Also, not all religious people do ritualistic rain dances. Newton, Godel etc were all completely rational creatures.

I have a feeling that you are just saying "these grapes are sour".

No matter how sore you feel things like yoga, meditation, good living and exercise contribute to better quality of life and longer lifespans. Just go to scholar.google.com and spend some time researching.

GigabyteCoin• 12 years ago

nothing we do can guarantee a long and healthy life.

I don't think anybody who works out is under the assumption that they will live to be 130+ years old.

We're all very well aware of babies with Cancer these days. Anything can happen.

But one thing's for certain, being active certainly prolongs life. That much I think we can all be sure of at this point.

How many true couch potatoes do you know that have made it past the ripe old age of 90? 80 even?

gonzo• 12 years ago

But one thing's for certain, being active certainly prolongs life. That much I think we can all be sure of at this point.

what we can be sure of is that being active improves the quality of life. Hell is not being able to move.

goodJobWalrus• 12 years ago

But one thing's for certain, being active certainly prolongs life.

you forgot to say "on average" here.

kaitai• 12 years ago

Eat your organic strawberry because it tastes good, and because you don't have to envision farm workers being sprayed by pesticides from planes when you take a nice big bite. Run because you enjoy it (and maybe it's good for you). Use that handwavy statistic for dinner-party justification of things you like anyway, like red wine, chocolate, butter, and broccoli.

You're right that nothing we can do will guarantee a long and healthy life. If nothing else, we could be hit by a drunk or texting driver while crossing the street. So enjoy the strawberry for the taste.

ronjouch• 12 years ago

"Nothing we do can guarantee a long and healthy life" it true, and shit happens. But running (or swimming, hiking or <insert your favorite non-violent sport here>) are not just a fad, and none made this promise. Their only promise is to exercise some vital functions, in a form of body maintenance, and maybe/even pleasure. You without a doubt believe exercising your brain (through reading, coding, etc.) is a sound occupation, why not your body?

Truth is, you aren't much without it. Stephen Hawkins might be able to think and write wonderful essays while occupying a severely diminished body, but you might not. I've seen people sinking into their growing disabilities due to lack of exercise, and I myself suffered from physical traumas (severe back pain, hernia), which seriously impacted my psychological stability and self-confidence.

Take care of your body, it will take care of you. Haruki Murakami has a wonderful book about body and mind, and their equilibrium, called What I Talk About When I Talk About Running [1], I very much recommend it.

[1] http://www.amazon.ca/What-Talk-About-When-Running/dp/0385681...

fasteo• 12 years ago

Agree. Jim Fixx's example is particularly bad. Mr. Fixx did have a genetic condition affecting his heart, he was a heavy smoker and he was severely overweight before starting his running revolution.

prestonbriggs• 12 years ago

I think crediting Fixx with the running revolution is a mistake. Instead, look to Frank Shorter winning a gold, on TV, in the '72 Olympic Marathon.

drcomputer• 12 years ago

Growing up in a secular society ancient religions can seem awful strange: why did people worship stone statues and sacrifice to them? Did they really believe all that effort did anything?

I don't know, do you really believe there is anything that suggests mathematics exists in reality outside of the maintenance of symbols, structure, and meaning in the mind of man?

Some things exist to teach patterns, to maintain a style of thinking. There are tons of things we don't understand about culture socially - in maintaining peace, individuality AND unity with ourselves as individuals and ourselves in society, that might have been intelligently dealt with in a very real way in cultures you consider primitive, intelligible, irrational, unscientific, archaic, and non-secular.

You can't judge a book by it's cover, so to speak. The superficial observation of ritual does not mean it serves no purpose. The meaning of things change over time, as these things are interpreted and understood by different cultures that come from different backgrounds with different ways of representing and interpreting information about the world. Math does not always represent what it says it represents. Neither do dancing statues. There are certainly TONS of things people rely on, things they assume about how existence functions, that we can't even begin to touch the tip of, because we are blinded by the complexity of our own minds.

rhblake• 12 years ago

7 years later he died of a heart attack while jogging at the age of 52.
His death doesn't mean running is a bad idea - a single anecdote is statistically insignificant - but perhaps it can remind us that nothing we do can guarantee a long and healthy life.

Or one could see it this way: His father had a heart attack at 35 and died of another heart attack at 42. Jim Fixx, who had a genetic condition, was a heavy smoker until age 36, etc., might very well have bought himself an extra ten years or so.

perlpimp3• 12 years ago

I found regular running increases not only health but quality of my life as well. The article states that in an overt way efficency of walking compared to youth - you won't get tired when you get there. Honestly day without running for me - not to say wasted but lost in some way as my attention is dulled, body feels less alive.

thesz3• 12 years ago

You may get hooked on endocannabinoids, if you run intensively for prolonged time (>1hr).

Running can and will mess with your endocrine system.

ripb• 12 years ago

but perhaps it can remind us that nothing we do can guarantee a long and healthy life.

Except advances in biotech...or at least I'm drastically hoping so.

brisky• 12 years ago

I am 27 years old and after few months of intensive running I got a spinal disc herniation. It took me about a half a year to recover from it. So my advice is not to rush into running without learning proper techniques and getting guidance from professionals.

dschiptsov• 12 years ago

Running also has an effect similar to rope skipping - all the inner organs receive a "free massage". It might be that simple.

pandler• 12 years ago

I'm certainly no scientist nor statistician, but studies like this bother me because of their tiny sample size. They studied 30 people. My understanding was always that you needed more samples than that to reach any kind of statistical significance.

Can anyone in the know comment on how realistic or significant it is for a study of this nature to reach any kind of conclusion from a sample size of 30?

curiously• 12 years ago

lot of the comments sound fatalistic, almost seems like they are invalidating and refuting healthy lifestyles.

dont_be_mean2• 12 years ago

Alan Turing ran to stay calm. He said: "I have such a stressful job that the only way I can get it out of my mind is by running hard."

kolev4• 12 years ago

I think "Stay Young to Run" is a much more truthful.

Run to Stay Young

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