Is your training good for you?

I recognised a little while ago that the last article on health matters, "Getting to the heart of the matter" (read it here) may have left a bit of a "training isn't good for you" message, which isn't what it intended. The key message from it, is that your heart is a muscle and needs decent recovery, just like your quads, if you don't want to have issues later on in life. So I have wanted to reset the balance around training and health. Thankfully, there has been some really interesting research this year on training, health and longevity - well, interesting to me.

from Manhattan Medical Arts webpage

Caveat : I should start off by stating that I am not an expert in biology or physiology and some of the research papers were quite technical. However, the authors have either set out clear conclusions in an abstract or others citing the research have, so I am pretty certain that what I write here is correct. However, any mistakes are totally my fault and not the researchers.

There have been distinct types of research that I describe in this article:

• one about the longevity of your cells and what that means to your ability to run (and mobility more generally) and ultimately your longevity (Refs Sanchez-Gonzales, Baliou, Sun)

• the other about the impact of training on diseases, etc. that cause mortality before the cells' demise (Ref Biswas)

• influence of sports activities on longevity (Refs : Altulea, Teramoto, Stevens)

Life of cells

Our cells do not last forever. Their lifespan depends on their function (and therefore the chemistry environment), e.g. stomach wall cells last 3 to 5 days, whereas your skeleton's cells are completely replaced every 10 years or so. To keep us going our cells reproduce themselves through cell division. Each cell contains chromosones, which are bundles of DNA, holding the "instructions for life" information. During cell reproduction, one parent cell creates two new daughter cells, essential for growth, repair, and making new organisms, involving DNA copying and splitting the cell's contents.

Each time a cell's DNA is split a bit of the chromosome is lost, so there are "sacrificial" sequences of DNA on their ends, called "telomeres" (see box right) to enable repeated reproduction. The 'environment' within your body determines how much is lost each time, but this is influenceable through your lifestyle choices, e.g. smoking, drinking, etc., and, importantly, exercise.

So are any forms of exercise better at reducing the rate of shortening? Well, the evidence is not totally conclusive (Sanchez-Gonzalez et al) but telomere shortening is reduced through telomerase activity (Baliou et al). Aerobic exercise (endurance training) increases telomerase activity. High intensity intervals training (eg a Tuesday evening session, or anaerobic sessions in the gym, HIIT, or sprinting) have been shown to maintain telomere length (Sun et al).

Reducing risk of illness, disease

Some of the research on telomere shortening highlighted the impact of exercise on risk of disease and cancer, as there are obvious links between cells not reproducing correctly and some diseases, including cancer. Other research has been rather more statistical and less "phenomenal" in nature. The research by Biswas et al involved over 100,00 people, using data from the UK Biobank for 2006 to 2015, with age range of 40 to 69 and 56% being female. They had the participants wear accelerometers for 7 days in 2013 to 2015

Two major outputs of the research were the relative impact of activity intensity on required duration to achieve a reduction in risk and what the achievable level of risk was for the different health issues analysed. The health outcomes they looked at were:

• major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE),

• cardiovascular disease mortality,

• type 2 diabetes,

• physical activity related cancer mortality

• physical activity related cancer incidence.

They looked at three intensity levels :

• vigorous intensity (running fast; MET>6)

• moderate intensity (running/jogging; 3<MET<6)

• light intensity (eg walking)

The abscissa is risk reduction for the various "ailment factors". The ordinate is the ratio of a minute of medium intensity exercise to vigorous for same risk reduction.

They found (graph) that for the health outcomes considered (above) that 1 minute of vigorous activity was equivalent to 4 to 9 of moderate and 53–156 of light. They also found specific major impacts of the intensity of the exercise and risk factors associated with the diseases, illnesses and resultant mortality.

The graph does take some understanding: i.e. for cardio-vascular mortality, you need nearly 8 times (in minutes) as much medium intensity exercise to achieve the same risk reduction as vigorous.

How far the individual trend lines go shows the amount of risk reduction achievable (based on this study), so its 35% (+) for type 2 diabetes, major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE) and all-cause mortality, 30% for cardio-vascular disease (CVD), 25% for physical activity (PA) related cancer mortality but "only" 15% for physical activity related cancer incidence. I'll take that!

So the evidence is really strong that vigorous exercise does result in significant reduction in illness and mortality risk, requiring much less time than medium and especially light forms of exercise intensity. NB - we all know that as you increase the intensity you do need more time to recover between efforts (reps, sets).

Sporting Activity influence on lifespan

Research by Abdullah Altulea et al shows how lifespan of international athletes from various sports is influenced by which sport they did. NB there's much more information for male athletes (top table) than female (bottom table). I leave you to ponder some of the results, i.e. while it's pretty obvious why sumo wrestlers may have the worst lifespans (-10 years), I am not so sure why volleyball (-5) should be so bad. Pole vaulting came out top (+8.4 years) just above gymnastics (8.2) and they do share some commonalities requiring agility, balance and coordination (the ABC's of athletics), all underpinned by great speed and strength. Running was +4.4, whereas sprinting is 5.3. This may be due to the risks of the environment, where they are done, rather than the activities' health impact. NB - cycling is at 2.2.

This research confirms and provides more granularity to the research of Teramoto. Coincidentally, he stated in his paper, "In conclusion, long-term vigorous exercise training is associated with increased survival rates of specific groups of athletes."

So all the above research confirms that rather than taking it easy, the "pipe and slippers" mentality of the past, older people should continue doing exercise, especially vigorous, if they wish to prolong their life and maintain good health.

Lastly, there was some research by Stevens and Cruwys on how people should do their exercise : on their own, or in groups, e.g. Club activities. Perhaps not surprisingly, being in a group or a member of a Club resulted in greater likelihood of continuing doing exercise and therefore a longer lifespan.

So, at this time of year when it's often cold and dark when you could exercise, and so the motivation may be lower, hopefully the above will help you get your sports kit on and go for that run or gym session, especially with other like minded people.

Next time I will describe what you should be doing within your "training" exercises, whatever your age.

References (2025 unless stated)

• "Effects of Physical Exercise on Telomere Length in Healthy Adults: Systematic Review, Meta-Analysis, and Meta-Regression", Juan Luis Sánchez-González, Juan Luis Sánchez-Rodríguez, Sergio Varela-Rodríguez, Rogelio González-Sarmiento, Cristina Rivera-Picón, Raúl Juárez-Vela, Clara Isabel Tejada-Garrido, Javier Martín-Vallejo, Víctor Navarro-López (authors from Universities of Salamanca, La Rioja, Rey Juan Carlos)

• "The impact of exercise on telomere length dynamics: Molecular mechanisms and implications in athletes (Review)", Stella Baliou, Marios Spanakis, Miruna-Maria Apetroaei, Petros Ioannou, Persefoni Fragkiadaki, Irene Fragkiadoulaki, Elisavet Renieri, Elena Vakonaki, Manolis N. Tzatzarakis, Alexander E. Nosyrev, Aristidis Tsatsakis

• "Exercise delays aging: evidence from telomeres and telomerase —a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials", Liang Sun, Tingran Zhang, Lanfang Luo, Yi Yang, Chuanqiushui Wang, Jiong Luo (from Universities in Chongqing, China)

• "Wearable device-based health equivalence of different physical activity intensities against mortality, cardiometabolic disease, and cancer", Raaj Kishore Biswas, Matthew N. Ahmadi, Adrian Bauman, Karen Milton (University of East Anglia), Nicholas A. Koemel & Emmanuel Stamatakis (all from University of Sydney, Australia unless stated)

• "Sport and longevity: an observational study of international athletes", Abdullah Altulea, Martijn G. S. Rutten, Lex B. Verdijk, Marco Demaria (European Research Institute for the Biology of Ageing, University Medical Center Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands)

• "Mortality and longevity of elite athletes", Masaru Teramoto, Timothy J. Bungum (both from University of Nevada), 2009

• "Membership in Sport or Exercise Groups Predicts Sustained Physical Activity and Longevity in Older Adults Compared to Physically Active Matched Controls", Mark Stevens, PhD, Tegan Cruwys, PhD, 2020