1. Running will give you a heart attack or other heart problems. It is true that exercise temporarily raises the odds of a heart attack while you’re mid-workout, but doing it consistently reduces that risk over the long haul, leading to a net benefit. Some researchers have questioned whether marathon running, especially in people who haven’t trained a lot, might cause heart damage, at least temporarily. But there’s no evidence that it causes long-term harm or actually leads to heart attacks. Even athletes with enlarged hearts—if they’re healthy hearts—aren’t, as once feared, at risk of early death. The bottom line: Simply going for a run most days of the week is doing far more good than bad for your heart.

2. Running will ruin your bones and joints. A study in the August issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine found no evidence of accelerated rates of osteoarthritis among long-distance runners when compared with healthy nonrunners. “We used to say that osteoarthritis came from wear and tear. That’s now revised to say that is can result from tear but not wear,” says James Fries, emeritus professor of medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine and senior author of the study. Moreover, weight-bearing exercise like running helps stave off osteoporosis by maintaining bone mineral density.

3. Running will kill you before your time. According to a study published this week in the Archives of Internal Medicine, running and other vigorous exercise in middle age is associated with a longer life. Not only that, it will make your later years more pleasant by reducing disability. After tracking runners and healthy nonrunners for 21 years, starting when they were at least 50 years old, a research team led by Stanford’s Fries found that the ability to perform activities of daily life like getting out of a chair and walking was better among runners than nonrunners. And 19 years into the study, 15 percent of the runners had died, compared with 34 percent of the nonrunners.
USNews.com

In his latest Q&A session, Bullz-Eye.com Fitness Editor Mike Furci discusses high protein diets, weight training vs. cardio, and chest workouts.

Q: Mike,
I just finished reading your article on Fitness Myth Busters. Although I agree with pretty much everything you said I do have a couple of comments on some things you wrote.

1. “Screw cardio!”

Are you serious? I think it’s a known AND proven fact that a good mix of cardio and weight training will provide a better fat loss program than just weight or cardio training alone. ESPECIALLY if we consider HIT cardio training.

A: It is true, HIT cardio (I assume you’re referring to interval training) is the best way to go if you’re going to put the time in. However, sorry to inform you, it is not a “proven fact” that a mix of cardio and weight training is the best way to go. Show me the evidence of long term success. There is NONE. Visit any gym and you’ll see what I mean. The majority of people who perform cardio regularly don’t make permanent gains. Cardio is vastly overrated as a means of losing body fat. In fact, if a person who is overweight embarks on a cardio program and doesn’t change their eating habits, they are doomed to failure. Adding muscle is the key, combined with a diet lower in refined foods, especially carbs.

A correspondent from Men’s Journal recently experimented with a high-altitude simulator to gage its effectiveness. For those unaware, a high-altitude simulator is a tent that engulfs your bed to help increase red blood cell production while you sleep. Why the hell would you want to do that? Well, red blood cells fuel endurance for when we run, swim, bike or do any other fast-paced exercise. Athletes like cyclist Lance Armstrong use it while training for a race because it helps simulate the altitude at which your red blood cells need to increase. Coupled with regular training, it’s like gaining all the benefits from weekly cardio…but while you sleep.

The product is intriguing, because according to the Men’s Journal correspondent, the tent works:

After three weeks, I felt as if I had a third lung. I blazed through a three-mile time trial 5 percent faster than I ever had, and I finished top-15 in my category in a hill climb. During the race I quickly caught my breath on the flat spots, then felt ready to pound away again. The tent worked — but I still had to train hard.

Two questions:

1) Is it worth $1,000-plus and sleeping in a bubble nightly to improve endurance?

For millionaire athletes, a thousand dollars for one of these puppies seems like a bargain, but what about for the common triathlon athlete or endurance enthusiast? Before dismissing the theory, how much do you spend yearly on food, supplements and training equipment to enhance your physique?

2) Are athletes like Armstrong cheating?

We as a society hate the fact that Barry Bonds could break a home run record he unfairly achieved, but are we being hypocritical? If these tents do work, did Armstrong have an unfair advantage? Steroids help testosterone growth, which therefore aids strength and muscle development through exercise. These tents are designed to increase red blood cell production, which therefore aids in endurance through exercise. The connection between these simulators and steroids might be on a different level, but it does raise an interesting debate.

Many physicians, including those whose study was published in the journal Circulation, believe there is such a thing as too much exercise.? 60 Boston Marathon participants were screned before the 2004 and 2005 races.? They showed normal cardiac function.

The same subjects were tested again after the races. 60% of them had elevated troponin levels.? Troponin is a marker in the blood used to help diagnose a heart attack, and to detect mild to severe heart injury.? Troponin tests are ordered primarily for people who have chest pain to see if there is damage to the heart.? 40% of the participants who had elevated trponin levels had levels at or above the decision limit for acute myocardial necrosis.? Meaning, some heart tissue, as in a heart attack, possibly died.??

Conclusion: DON’T OVERDO IT.? Extreme endurance events are associated with cardiac dysfunction in several studies, especially for those with less training.