The benefits of physical fitness cannot be underestimated. Physical fitness helps to prevent health problems such as diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular diseases, and improve the quality of life. For athletes, physical fitness is essential in guaranteeing their position on the team; thus they face a lot of pressure to engage in intense workouts to remain on top of the game. Undoubtedly, physical fitness is essential for athletes as it influences their speed, agility, ability to maintain focus, and overall performance in a sport. College athletics are highly competitive; thus coaches and athletes face a lot of pressure in preparing for the games (Wojtys, 2018). Consequently, coaches design dangerous workouts for their teams and athletes participate in these exercise regimens to the detriment of their health. There is a fine line between physical fitness and dangerous workouts. Many college students have died from extreme workouts.
Causes of Death from Extreme Workouts
Extreme workouts lead to unprecedented deaths in various ways. Foremost, dangerous exercises raise the internal body temperatures to be dangerous and life-threatening levels. High intense physical training activities like muscle cramping, weight lifting, and sprinting conducted over extended duration causes exertional heat, where the core body temperatures rise to over 400C (Navarro et al., 2017). Apart from intensity and duration of physical exercise, other factors are leading to exertional heat including climatic conditions and level of athletes’ physical fitness and lifestyle behaviors. For example, exercising in humid weather conditions predisposes athletes to exertional heat stroke (EHS); thus it is essential for athletes to acclimatize with the weather before beginning training. On the other hand, sleep deprivation, medications, and dehydration also interfere with internal thermoregulation. EHS leads to cell damage and disruption of body functions and lack of timely medical attention results in death.
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Although the symptoms of EHS are easily identifiable, lack of awareness of the condition and coaches unwillingness to stop the workouts result in high mortality rates among athletes. Physical workouts are used to test athletes’ endurance during the sport, and athletes’ ability to complete the exercises influence their selection into the team (Navarro et al., 2017). Therefore, athletes ignore or are afraid of telling their coaches when they begin to experience the initial signs of EHS including nausea, hyperventilation, diarrhea, ataxia, and fatigue to secure their position in teams. As a result, many cases of EHS are discovered when the athletes collapse after a workout and are taken to hospitals. However, EHS cases and the consequent morbidity and mortality rates can be prevented by taking regular breaks during training.
Secondly, extreme workouts lead to severe muscle injuries among athletes resulting in the development of a deadly condition called exertional rhabdomyolysis (ER). Dangerous exercises stress different muscles in the body, and the sustained injuries have a long-lasting impact on the athletes (Nichols, 2014). Most injuries acquired during workouts affect the hamstrings and dislocation of joints during physical exercises. ER occurs when extreme exercises lead to the destruction of the skeletal muscles that often occurs due to a sudden increase in the intensity of physical workouts.
Football is a favorite and physically demanding sport in America, and all the players are expected to be physically fit before the beginning of a season. Due to the limited amount of sports training during the term, serious football training is reserved for the school breaks. High-intensity training begins almost immediately after the end of the school year, and all the athletes go through the same training regimen. Just like other college students, some athletes may engage in poor eating habits and alcohol consumption when training is not on the session. Therefore, the athletes’ bodies are not always on the best physical condition before they resume practice. As a result, the sudden exposure of athletes to high-intensity workouts results in the development of ER and must end-up hospitalized. ER results in the elevation of creatine kinase (CK), which damages the heart muscles and increases the risk of heart damage (Nichols, 2014_. Repetitive ER continuously exposes athletes to the risk of death, and negatively influences their chances of rejoining their sports after receiving medical attention. Many cases of ER in football are reported during August implying that they are directly related to extreme workouts.
Although physical fitness is essential for the maintenance of a healthy cardiovascular system, extreme workouts lead to contrary results. Many college sports require a lot of endurance; thus the athletes engage in excessive exercises to ensure they sustain the necessary level of energy (Woijtys, 2018). However, the extreme workouts gradually begin to have a negative toll on their body. Arguably the most significant negative impact of dangerous workouts among college athletes is the high rates of artery calcification. Arterial calcification among athletes occurs because the extreme strain affects the arteries leading to the deposition of calcium plaque in the blood vessels. The arterial calcification eventually leads to constriction of blood vessels leading to the development of atherosclerosis disease. However, the initial signs of arterial calcification and the consequent negative impact of the condition often go unnoticed until cardiovascular diseases begin to manifest in the lives of the athletes.
Notably, atherosclerosis is the underlying cause of many cardiovascular diseases affecting college athletes. Atherosclerosis leads to many types of illnesses including coronary artery disease, heart defects, and carotid and peripheral arterial conditions. However, many college athletes are unaware that participation in excessive workouts negatively affects their hearts; thus they rarely go for routine check-ups. Moreover, the students and coaches rarely anticipate the occurrence of these diseases; therefore it is often surprising when the athletes are diagnosed with cardiovascular diseases after collapsing on the field. Although some athletes that participate in extreme workouts may not experience the negative impacts of arterial calcification during their college life, they may exhibit the signs and symptoms of these conditions by their mid-forties.
Furthermore, extreme workouts result in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy among athletes leading to sudden cardiac death (SCD). According to Eijsvogels, Fernandez, & Thompson, (2015), SCD is the leading cause of death among college athletes. Continuous intensive workouts among athletes lead to the modification of the cardiovascular system as the body adapts to the new condition. The thickening of the left ventricle (LV) is arguably the most significant impact of intense workouts on the heart. Abnormal thickening of the LV is essential in increasing the stroke volume of blood during exercise. The approximate size of LV among many athletes is approximately 15.8 mm to 19.7 mm. Thickening of the LV leads to the obstruction of blood flow into the body; thus continual engagement in dangerous workouts ca suddenly cut off the blood supply. Unfortunately, the symptoms of SCD are not easily noticeable, and many athletes die from the condition.
Extreme workouts also result in the development of exercise-associated hyponatremia leading to death. Dehydration is a common problem facing college students that engage in bad exercise. Therefore, students are expected to consume a lot of fluids to avoid the risk of dehydration. However, some students may drink a lot of fluids within a few hours leading to the development of hyponatremia. Rosner (2015) discusses a case involving a college athlete, who consumed approximately 8 liters of fluids within a span of eight hours leading to death. Another young football player also died from hyponatremia after the consumption of 16 L of water to elevate the negative physical symptoms of extreme workout. Women athletes are at a higher risk of hyponatremia compared to men (Hew-Butler et al., 2017). Moreover, hyponatremia is more prevalent among long-distance runner, and the condition is commonly reported among marathoners, who consistently drink fluids to stay rehydrated. Despite the significant risk of hyponatremia to athletes, there is a generally low awareness of the condition among the athletes.
Strategies of Preventing Death from Extreme Workouts
From the above discussion, several strategies should be employed to prevent deaths from extreme workouts. Foremost, there is a need to establish a clear physical fitness guideline for college athletes in the country. Lack of regulation of physical exercise programs in colleges predisposes students to the negative impacts of extreme workouts, as coaches are given the freedom to design physical fitness programs for their teams. However, some coaches unknowingly plan dangerous workouts that result in athletes’ death through either medical conditions discussed above. Undoubtedly, the fitness guidelines would help the trainers to customize the workout programs to meet the specific needs of different athletes on the team. As a result, there will be lower rates of accidental deaths caused by extreme workouts.
Secondly, it is essential to use education to raise awareness about the dangers of extreme workouts in the lives of athletes. From the above discussion, it is clear that there is low awareness about the different signs and symptoms of conditions that develop due to athletes’ involvement in extreme workouts. For example, many coaches and athletes are unable to recognize the signs of EHS, ER, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, and SCD. Many deaths caused by extreme workouts are preventable through their early detection. Therefore, coaches should learn about the types of signs that they should look-out for among the athletes to determine when there is a health emergency. Sensitizing college athletes about the dangers of extreme workouts also helps them to take more responsibility for their health. As a result, the athletes will gain the courage to openly discuss the negative symptoms of extreme workouts with their coaches, and they will know when to stop exercising to avoid grievous body harm.
Finally, there is a need for more research to facilitate a better understanding of the negative impacts of extreme workouts. The adverse effects of intense exercise on the cardiovascular system is a highly controversial subject. Lack of conviction that extreme workouts result in arterial calcification is a significant barrier in the promotion of proper physical fitness programs among athletes. Research into the problem should focus on the determination of pathophysiology of extreme workouts in athletes’ bodies. As a result, it will be easy to justify the adoption of better workout programs for college athletes around the country.
Conclusion
Undoubtedly, there is a fine line between physical fitness and extreme workouts among athletes. Physical fitness plays an integral role in enhancing athletes’ performance in the field. Contrastingly, extreme workouts predispose athletes to serious medical conditions that culminate to death and high morbidity rates. The general perception that intense workouts are essential in toughening the players by building their endurance rate is fundamentally wrong. Accidental deaths that occur after extreme workouts are a huge loss to the community and athletics fraternity. However, deaths caused by intense workouts can be prevented by raising awareness level about the negative impact of exercise, development of standardized fitness program, and higher research investment into the health problem.
References
Eijsvogels, T. M., Fernandez, A. B., & Thompson, P. D. (2015). Are there deleterious cardiac effects of acute and chronic endurance exercise?. Physiological reviews , 96 (1), 99-125.
Hew-Butler, T., Loi, V., Pani, A., & Rosner, M. H. (2017). Exercise-associated hyponatremia: 2017 update. Frontiers in medicine , 4 , 21.
Navarro, C. S., Casa, D. J., Belval, L. N., & Nye, N. S. (2017). Exertional Heat Stroke. Current sports medicine reports , 16 (5), 304-305.
Nichols, A. W. (2014). Heat-related illness in sports and exercise. Current reviews in musculoskeletal medicine , 7 (4), 355-365.
Rosner, M. H. (2015). Preventing deaths due to exercise-associated hyponatremia: the 2015 consensus guidelines.
Wojtys, E. M. (2018). The dark side of college football.
