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Not sure about this one.

When in my fourties I looked in the mirror one day and thought "my god man you have piled on a few pounds lately".

I immediately went out and joined a gym for a bit of indoor running

So, I went weekly for an hour or two. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

My I'm not sure!

I was happily running along on my treadmill one day, hreart rate at a constant 125bpm, whe suddenly there was an almighty commotion on the treadmill next to me.

The guy running next to me had collapsed.

He was 52 years old. I knew this because we had had a few chats.

He suffered a heart attack in the gym and died on the treadmill.

Poor guy. Poor family.

I gave up going to the gym after that.



The data in the linked article from 20 million observations vs your 1 observed incident suggests you should keep going to the gym.

You have no idea what his pre-existing medical conditions were.


I don't know about the guy in that specific incident, but in my case he was apparently healthy with no health complications, having had regular checkups on top of the mandatory ones (to be able to frequent a gym). This is the scary part for me.


How old was he?

We doubled our lifespan from 32 to 75 from 1900 to now. In a 100 years, we changed the game.

Once we pass 50, there is a lot of complex machinery at play including genetics, past history, diet, drinking, smoking e.t.c. to cause death.


In his late 30s. If he was, say, in his 50s or 60s this wouldn't have weirded me out as much. Could have been an anatomical defect or something like that, not caught by the regular checkups? Who knows...


Something similar happened at the gym I went to years ago, although I wasn't there when it happened. The poor guy collapsed while lifting weights. WEIGHTS. I kept reluctantly going for a few days before stopping. Then on the radio I heard about a guy collapsing while running on the treadmill, just like your fellow gymgoer, and it was the last drop in the bucket that kept me from doing any exercise other than slow to moderately paced walks. The prospect of collapsing from something that should make me healthier terrifies me.


This baffles me.

It’s well known that exercise is beneficial for overall health. Sure, some people die doing it just like some people die doing literally anything else.


Consider he was in his late 30s, which makes this even more absurd. For all I know, as you suggest, he could've also collapsed from doing heavy house chores or renovation, and it's something I've been careful not to overdo as well for that same fear.


*prospect of dying




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