Does Exercise Age Us?

We all know that exercise is good for us, but can we do too much? Perhaps even so much that we age our bodies quicker? Ian Craig takes a look at this intriguing question.

I recently had a client who, when he entered my office, I pinned as being around five years my senior. From his previous phone call, describing his athletic activities, I was expecting a superhero athlete type, so I immediately placed him in the Masters category. From what he was about to tell me, fit he certainly was but healthy I wasn’t too sure about, and when I first got a glimpse of his date of birth on the questionnaire in front of me, I realised that he was three months younger than me.

He had been very successful at a 2 400 km mountain bike race across South Africa, starting near Durban and finishing in Cape Town – not a stage race, but rather one that you need to try and complete in the shortest amount of time possible. With varying sleep strategies, participants will regularly ride through the night to try and gain maximum competitive advantage. The record for this amazing journey is 10 and a half days and, for the past two years, my athlete had been aiming to complete it in a supposedly attainable 10 days. But he had come unstuck health-wise due to a chronic virus problem, pulling out of the 2012 competition after one day of racing and only entering the short version race in 2013.

THE ANTI-AGEING IDEALS OF EXERCISE

When I was a young athlete, I had the same ideals as my Mr Endurance Man – train hard, be fit and you will be healthy into old age, and, I thought, maybe even live longer. As a student of exercise in those days nothing existed to dispel my myth. That was 25 years ago and I still have to hunt hard to find contrary information.