My name is Stephen Seiler and I am both an age-group athlete-ish and a sport scientist. I have contributed a bit here on Fast Talk.
Training is good for you in general, but there is wear and tear and athletes are not always good at listening to their bodies or taking health problems seriously.
I have developed an international survey with a master’s student and I really could use the help of the Fast Talk audience to get more information about how/whether training characteristics and health characteristics are related among endurance athletes, both female and male, from recreational to professional.
One of the reasons we were excited to setup the Fast Talk Labs platform is because of the possibility of aiding quality exercise science research as the platform develops.
So, I’m personally very excited that we’re able to help a research of @stephen.seiler’s caliber with one of his new studies. I truly hope all of our forum members are able to take the time to help out and answer the survey. You’re aiding good science if you do!
Interesting survey. It seems to me, that to be able to answer a number of the questions, the survey self selects a certain athlete. I’m guessing that this is part of the intent of the survey.
Well, that is not intended, but obviously, a certain “digital age” bias is probably going to be present in any study performed in this manner. Most endurance athletes are pretty systematically oriented and record their training to some degree, but asking about training hours per week and such will tend to accentuate that, I agree!
Had to drill into Training Peaks to get some of those answers. If more detail is requested I would be willing to share TP data.
In my case I think we can say “yes” endurance training is healthy; besides the fact that I lost 40 lbs when I got off the couch about 12 years ago, more recently I went to see my Doc (sports med so he gets it) about very mild chest pains occasionally while riding. Long story short, it wasn’t anything cardiac, BUT they did find hypertension response to exercise, got me on mild BP medicine, which actually gave me a performance boost. And maybe avoided a stroke 20 years from now
The Mark Weir story from a couple years ago was the trigger that got me in the office
Criteria for participation: training and/or competing in endurance sports…
What is a competition? Where do you draw the line?
I was training for the WRICH 2022 in Hamburg. Cancelled due to the covid situation. Now you can say it’s just indoor rowing. The real sport is on the water… this competition is not a real competition - it doesn’t count… on the other hand, you can argue that running 3 miles around the block with your neighbor is a competition - if you treat as a contest.
Where do you draw the line?
Yes, my statement implies a bit of disappointment with the cancellation of WRICH 2022
