Pages

Wednesday 20 March 2019

Cyclists' hearts





Not sure what to make of this. We all know that major sports stars have to be dedicated but this feels more like madness than dedication. 

6 comments:

Sam Vega said...

I can only assume that those guys suffered a "perfect storm" of conditions. As well as the physique and the opportunities to compete at that level, I imagine they had some very strong need for approval and status, coupled with an addictive personality. When people purposefully risk death we know we are dealing with extraordinary individuals. The irony is that they are famous merely as psychological specimens now, rather than as cyclists.

Robbo said...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6U728AZnV0... a cardiologist on one of the Ted Talks, he say too much exercise damages the heart!

wiggiatlarge said...

As an ex racing cyclist, I do know a bit about this,
The video slightly contradicts itself and there is a Pt 2 which contains ?

The heart is a muscle, exercise makes the heart bigger as in the same way any muscle is when put through a training regime, naturally with road/endurance racing this is taken to the extreme as no other sport requires the body to repeat daily that which the pro cyclist puts himself through, so the incidence of large heart slow heart rate at rest is pretty normal among these athletes.
EPO is the reason nearly all those deaths occurred especially during the nineties, the use of EPO became endemic, even 15 year olds were found to be using it, often unsupervised during this period.
The heart simply struggled to pump round the thickened blood and would succumb to the work load at night allied to a slow heart beat, the incidence of deaths outside of EPO is not significantly different to any other sport and all have used or are using other drugs that have different side effects, Tom Simpsons death in the '67 TDF was nothing to do with EPO but was a combination of other stimulants and his ability to go over the top with his efforts a deadly combination but rare.
As for too much exercise damaging the heart all of the great road cyclists have depite the warnings of impending doom, gone on to very much normal lives in retirement.
Eddy Merckx, the greatest of all road cyclists was found to have ridden all his career with a life threatening heart condition, he is still very much around but it is an interesting read.
http://athleticheartsf.com/the-heart-of-a-cyclist/

wiggiatlarge said...

I should have added that Marco Pantani, having retired, died after locking himself in an hotel room, he was suffering from depression and died of a huge overdose of cocaine and anti depressants, nothing to do with his cycling exertions.

A K Haart said...

Sam - yes they probably are famous as psychological specimens outside cycling enthusiasts. Maybe there is a genetic aspect which allows them to excel and this in turn provides much of the stimulus to excel. Whatever it is, I don't have it.

Robbo - thanks for the link, I've bookmarked it for later.

Wiggia – I see this as a general interest video about the extreme physiological effects of pushing the human body too far. Cycling is in the frame because of its high profile, drug scandals and from the look of his headgear the guy presenting the video is interested in cycling.

Presumably it could have been athletics, but even the marathon comes across as less demanding than say the Tour de France where people see displays of human fitness and endurance which are far beyond anything they could aspire to personally. But there may be physiological consequences in any sport which throws up people who must win at all costs.

wiggiatlarge said...

I was not being disparaging about the video as such, just that it started with an innocent no drugs theme then tacked on drugs further in, as I said there is a Pt 11 out there.
Cycling has had to live with the drugs 'problem' for lack of a better word virtually from the day it became a sport, and rightly has suffered the consequences, I make no excuses for that, but was just trying to point out the basic facts about the sport, or one part of it and the relationship with drugs and also the large heart which is common place in road cyclists, if I came across in a different way I apologise.

Drugs in athletics and many other sports, oh yes, but amateurs in the scheme of things until very recently.