She will soon be an Olympic champion....

[rich121]

@NumberTwo

My understanding is that the early and premature thickening of the muscle adversely affects the suppleness, flexibility and, ultimately, the performance of the heart at full maturity. I’ve also read that this phenomenon has been tied to cases of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and sudden death later in life. Significant changes in early development often profoundly impact structure and function later in life (similar to developing bone density very early to ensure that greater bone density carries with you into later life).

As an aside, our football program suffered a loss with our quarterback passing away from hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Months later as we were still grasping for answers, one of the coaches mentioned that the athlete told him how his parents often took him hiking (and made him hike by himself) in the mountains of Austria when he was young. The coach asked him if he was 10-12 years old, and the athlete said, “No, I was 4 years old.” It made me wonder about how such a significant aerobic activity at altitude could affect changes to an athletes heart structure at a very young age. There could be no connection, but it still made me wonder.

My understanding is that any thickening of the heart wall or valves is not desirable, particularly for aerobic performance. A significant portion of the marketing of electronic muscle stim is “geared” towards road cyclists in Europe. They claim that the blood pressure and effort created through conventional weight training will thicken the heart muscle, thereby reducing cardiac performance. Use of EMS, however, will result in strength improvements without the cardiac hypertrophy.

“conventional weight training will thicken the heart muscle”

Is this including the weight training in Charlie’s or general sprint programs?

Rick