The Haywire Heart: How too much exercise can kill you, and what you can do to protect your heart

Básicamente se trata de un compendio de los conocimientos sobre el tema, bastante bien desarrollado, basado en muchas fuentes y con un buen nivel divulgativo.Por otro lado, al puro estilo americano, insiste mucho en casos muy concretos, detallando durante páginas hasta los sentimientos de las personas que se citan como ejemplos, volviéndose algo pesado.La calidad de la gráfica, la impresión y la encuadernación de la versión de tapa blanda es bastante pobre.

I've been an elite masters cyclist in Ontario Canada for several decades and have won National and Provincial Championships on both road and track. Recently I lost a good friend who used to be a fierce competitor and continued to keep himself in excellent condition - he just dropped dead one morning from a heart attack. I also have another close friend who is learning to live with severely impaired heart function. Again, a man who kept himself in pretty good shape. As I think back over the years I realise that there have been several other deaths of masters cyclists from heart problems that I know about. I just never really thought much about it because, like many others, I had a mindset that endurance aerobic activity strengthened a person's heart and cardiovascular system. Not sure how I camp across this book but it has been an eye-opener for me and explains so much that was in the back of my mind, unresolved. I suggest you read the epilogue first before you get into the details of the main body of the book. I'm 75 years old now and my doctor tells me I'm doing just fine so maybe I'll be okay. The book explains that most endurance athletes do not have problems with their hearts, but some do, and it is a significant enough risk that we should all be aware of it. Remember, just because something is good for you does not mean that more of it will be better. I heartily recommend this book to anyone who participates in endurance sport, or has a loved one who does.

There is apparently an emerging theory (backed up by a growing body of evidence) that excessive high-level exercise can cause abnormal heart rhythms. This fed through into the community in a Velo News article by the authors of this book in 2015.This book explains that theory - beginning with a case study (and with other case studies scattered throughout the work) - going on to explain how the heart works and how exercise affects the heart and how the heart can be damaged (specifically by or contributed to by high level, high volume exercise). The authors acknowledge that the theory is not 'nailed on' and that there is much work to do to understand how arrythmias develop and whether the link with exercise is indisputable.What the work does is identify the issue, explores it, offers some insight and advice about 'best practice' to perhaps avoid damaging your heart 'just in case'.To a degree, I have to say that the book could cause alarm and concern and I recommend also reading the online blog of Dr Larry Cresswell who is a little less alarmist (in my opinion) and whilst he doesn't dismiss the link with exercise, he offers a more conservative view.I thoroughly recommend the book for what the insights it gives, the quality of the writing and the depth.I should emphasise that this is an exceptional work that is perfectly suitable for the lay person; i.e. not requiring any or any detailed medical knowledge.

Devo ancora finirlo, ma non mi pare offra soluzioni concrete per evitre i problemi. Tuttavia apre gli occhi in modo abbastanza divulgativo (e quindi comprensibile ai più) sulle problematiche cardiache degli sport di endurance protratti per tanti anni.

It's a really interesting book, if a little niche. There are a growing number of endurance athletes in their 40s and 50s, (me amongst them) who despite being apparently very healthy have developed cardiac arrhythmias. At first this was seen by the medical world as simply bad luck, but these authors pull together the evidence that it's likely that prolonged hard training can actually cause heart problems and they explain why. I had already arrived at similar conclusions myself. Looking back I was training far too hard and my body tried to tell me so! The authors know what they are talking about and who they are talking to as they are keen sportsmen themselves, and John Mandrola is a cardiac electrophysiologist, so specialises in heart rhythm problems. It is a giant adjustment to make from seeing yourself as super-fit to realising you have a heart problem, and it's an adjustment that probably a lot of people are going to have to make unless people get a better understanding of what hard training can do to them. This book should help both the people doing the adjusting and the process of creating a better understanding. I am grateful to the authors for putting it together. They will never make a fortune from it, so they have written it to help other people.