On Fri, 5 Nov 1999, S.B. Feldman wrote:

> << If a person wants to make body comp changes--excessive aerobics can cause
> muscle wasting,
>  which will lower the metabolic rate.   >>
> What  is this all about?

I think "excessive aerobics" refers especially to the phenomenon
of daily distance running, to the exclusion of other forms of
exercise.  There are still plenty of people who believe that
distance running is the only exercise that matters.  In many
cases, such people do not eat enough protein and so as they
punish the tissues in their legs, protein from the upper body
must be cannibalized.  The result is a person with a rather
emaciated upper body.  And of course any and all muscle loss
lowers metabolic rate, since muscle is metabolically active
tissue.

I don't say that this is an inevitable result of distance
running.  Certainly one can take steps to eat enough protein and
do some upper-body exercises.  But many runners are reluctant to
devote any time or energy to any exercise other than running, and
many are also persuaded to eat lots of carbs and little protein
or fat.

I have a few colleagues who fall into this category-- fanatical
distance runners who cannot shake the neurotic feeling that if
they are doing some exercise other than running they are wasting
valuable energy that could have been used for more running.  They
get weird if they miss a day, and are always "carbing up" for the
next run.  They look like hell.  One guy actually lost a testicle
due to inflammation from over-training.  That didn't stop him.

My own view is that if you're running your balls off it's time to
think of something else to do.

Todd Moody
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