Hey Rich, sorry to leave you solo on this one. I just saw the thread. I have done some speed work with Hannah, her brother and some kids on the team when they had reached a “plateau” of sorts. She’s sharp and a quick study and really well rounded.
Her dad Mike is sharp and has an excellent outlook and support system from physio thru nutrition. The guy is so positive and upbeat and always has something inspiring to say.
Hannah, has amazing upside left, and we have noted some technical things that will shave another half second off her 100 meter time.
Thank God that only He knows what tomorrow holds, so in the meantime we will hope and pray for the best for Hannah and all the youngsters trying to do their best.
James, this has come up a couple of times recently. Could you explain why this premature thickening in unfavourable, compared with adults where I believe a degree of LV hypertrophy is a normal response to exercise? Is it as a result of hypertrophy occurring under anaerobic vs aerobic conditions?
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.
Within the context of the goals of an elite aerobic based road cyclist, they would deem any thickening of the heart walls to be detrimental to the circulatory efficiency of the cardiac system. For the rest of us, it would not be considered to be of any detriment.
It is my understanding that ventricular hypertrophy, along with a slight increase in ventricular cavity size, contributes to increased stroke volume and cardiac output and is therefore beneficial to athletes and accounts for lower maximal heart rates often seen in elite athletes.
The key is to distinguish between an adaptation that is desirable and appropriate for one level of biological maturity yet undesirable and misappropriate for another.
See Number 2’s response in reference to the latter.
I would like to read more about undesirable ventricular adaptations from exercise in children. Any sources on this would be gratefully received as my own searches have yielded nothing specifically relevant.
Just to re-iterate – I have very little specific knowledge regarding cardiac physiology. I’m simply relaying my personal experiences and some anecdotal information in speaking with a few people in the know.
Might be a good idea to do a literature search on PubMed to get a good idea of what the research is showing.
Very interesting and important topic though.
James - does your university do any screening on hypertrophic cardiomyopathy cases? If so, how is it done - through ECG analysis? I recently watched the ESPN 30 for 30 documentary on Loyola Marymount, Hank Gathers and Paul Westhead. Still, after all these years, a very sad story.
Don’t quote me on this; however, this is how I think the process goes:
I can’t recall if the general pre-screening/physicals include that assessment; however, diagnostic tests such as this are performed on an individual basis when information is passed on from the players trainers or physician back home or if a player is symptomatic of some type of cardiac issue here.
I believe MRI and ECG are the ones.
We are fortunate in that our sports medicine facility is about 300yds down the block from our training facility.
After reading what others have inputed about this, I wanted to be more aware…
Every single source I found said that Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy is a genetic mutation, that is often traceable to other members of the Family…
From what I read, there is nothing that would indicate any particular kind of excercise would cause this, in fact the only thing I could find that they know, is that it’s a genetic mutation?
I would be more apt to say, that there were people that had this condition, that did particular excercises, and they were mistakenly linked, instead of the genetic mutation?
Anyways, after reading I am releaved and have no fears.
30 years ago having a vascectomy was also thought to have caused hardening of the arteries (have not the time to spellcheck). I think the arterie they are thinking with is about a foot from the heart
I have been looking in to this also. I couldn’t find anything (via pubmed or google scholar) that suggested exercise induced ventricular hypertrophy in children may have adverse consequences.
This is a great thread. As a parent coach i had to pull my 2 younger daughters out of track all together (ages 9 and 12) I let my older one train (13yo) 1-2 /week and the longest distance we ran was an easy 400m jog and I mean I could walk next to her… All we did was shot put throws/medball throw and hurdle drils and starts… Lo and be hold she PRs almost 16ft almost 5 ft in the HJ. Her hurdles are a work in progress but for the 100m hurdles she did 17 low fat… And we did a SE work out she was able to do 13.5 to 14 for 4x100m with a walk back rest…
To my surprise the 2 younger ones had HUGE PRs with no training at all maybe a few times a month of med ball and very short sprints playing bball…
My point echo’s what everyone else is saying you CAN get results training with low volume low density training. STAY AWAY from coaches who do long sprints in practice and want them to do XC comps and are all crazy about JO’s focus on the long term… I took my kid to a camp where Roger Kindom and Andre Phillips were the coaches and after a long talk with them and they asked me what I did with my kid, they said I wish more parents did that…(low volume and form work…) They were not impressed with speed they were impressed that she had the basics down and she understands what to do when they asked her to change her technique… They said it made their job much easier… Focus on the basics and short stuff and the rest will come when they are older…
to give one example (although not from a scientific journal)
“Premature work loads requiring considerable anaerobic energy, applied to athletes who are not adequately prepared for this type of work, cause an excessive load on the cardiac function and a thickening of the artery walls, which delay the development of peripheral circulation and hinder cardiac activity itself. These factors may, in turn, cause a myocardial dystrophy. There is also a reduction of the oxidative capacity of the skeletal muscles, because mitochondrion integrity is disturbed and, therefore, speed at the anaerobic threshold level decreases.”
I’m no expert of course, and from what I have read, this is getting confusing, as I think we are talking about different things.
I believe what your posting is what was being referred to earlier in the posts, which has my interest.
But, I believe " Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy" is an entirely different disease, and is a genetic condition?
And then yet third example, that is “beneficial” thickening of the heart walls, and reversible in the future with less workout…?