Limits to Human Endurance

[Ret10Echo]

Link to the article here

Washington (AFP) - US scientists who studied the performance of myriad athletes -- including adventurous souls who spent five long months running across the United States -- have come up with an estimate of the absolute physiological boundary of human endurance

I believe I know of a very unique subset of souls that will shit all over their statistical analysis....

Just saying.........................

[Little Fish]

YThat is a wee bit humorous. [COLOR="black"][/COLOR]
Guess they couldnt find any of you guys to test.Too busy honing skills unknown to these humans.
Crikey!

[Little Fish]

[CThat's a wee bit humerous. Guess you guys were too bust honing new skills with your very own metabolisn.
Crikey!

[Fonzy]

Saw a response from Alex Viada regarding this study, who's planning on doing a deeper diver on the topic in the near future. Amazing strength/endurance athlete and puts out a ton of great information, if you're unfamiliar with him, but his comments regarding:

Sorta kinda- what the study is measuring is maximum sustainable output over extended periods of time without inevitable breakdown of vital organs/systems/steady decrease in energy stores/body mass, basically saying "At what level can humans push/maintain energy output while remaining in an effective neutral energy balance. Anything over 2.5 mets is not sustainable indefinitely, which is why calling it "endurance" was a bit misleading.
The adaptive effect is taken into account in this number, too- though it's uncertain if this adaptive effect would include any sort of structural/repair down-regulation that could potentially be a problem later on (I'd think full blood panels, kidney and liver function panels, etc. would all be needed for this).
The best revised headline for this article would probably be "Upper limit of caloric expenditure without loss of actual body mass that can be sustained indefinitely regardless of energy intake" would be more appropriate, I think. Basically 2.5x is the alimentary limit, and any sort of decrease in TEE can only increase the manageable output somewhat.
I thought the example/control of a pregnant human was a good comparator- basically, late stage pregnancy and lactation are pushing the limits of what can be indefinitely maintained without net body mass loss- which almost makes sense.

[Flagg]

Moore’s Law price/performance for sensors, data collection, and data analysis is going to make this a really interesting area of study.

Not just for studying OP RET10Echo’s sentiments, but also how it factors into long-term health and wellness.

I’m quickly approaching the end of my career in uniform so my personal focus has shifted in recent years on durability and longevity instead of raw peak performance.

Especially after seeing so many joint replacements in soldiers much younger than myself.

Will it be possible to further develop peak human performance while concurrently enhancing loan-term durability and longevity?

Or will burning twice as hot, half as long always apply?

I wonder if this could contribute to future changes in disability ratings, both positive and negative?