Hey there,
I’ve begun to learn more about the competitive endurance world for fun and I’ve been wondering about any health outcomes that would be concerning. Are you aware of any data to indicate what could be considered an excessive (i.e. unhealthy) level of endurance training? I’ve heard the term “ventricular hypertrophy” get tossed around but am not sure if A) thats a real thing to be worried about and B) how much training are we talking here? To make it individual, would a person who wants to run a marathon or two a year need to be worried about such a thing? I would think 50k ultra-marathons cross into the red zone here but I don’t know.
Thank you for your time!
There is no single threshold amount for this, as individual tolerances will vary depending on a number of factors.
I would not have concerns about cardiac remodeling related to exercise in people who are otherwise healthy, however, and do not think that training to run a marathon or two is worthy of significant concern here.
Ventricular hypertrophy due to training wouldn’t be something to worry about, espeically not in the context of running a marathon or even ultra-marathoning.
If you are looking at deaths of elite endurance athletes, understand that deaths in the past were compounded not just by their low HR (sub40), but by blood doping and subsequent increased viscocity of their blood.