Most people say that running is the safest and easiest way to exercise and stay in shape or even trim down your weight.  Some doctors even prescribe running to pregnant women at a slow pace.  However, running may accelerate to a dangerous level if taken to the extreme and professional advice is not heeded.

According to the Live Strong website, running is a high-intensity aerobic activity that makes normal speech difficult or impossible and significantly elevates your heart rate.  However, a heart rate of 182 beats per minute is high even for runners and exceeds common exercise guidelines.  On May 23, 2012, New York Times published the death of ultramarathoner Micah on a solo wilderness trail run.

The American Journal of Sports Medicine conducted a recent study and gathered publicly available data on participation in and deaths during or immediately after every known marathon race in the United States from 2000 to 2009.  What the researchers found was that, even as participation in marathon racing almost doubled during the past decade, to more than 473,000 finishers in 2009 from about 299,000 in 2000, the death rate remained unchanged, and vanishingly small.  A total of 28 people died during or in the 24 hours immediately after a marathon, most of them men, and primarily from heart problems.  Those numbers translate into less than one death per 100,000 racers.

Extreme exercise such as marathons may permanently damage the heart and trigger rhythm abnormalities, according researchers as published in the Daily Mail United Kingdom.  They say the safe exercise for running is a maximum of an hour a day, after which there is little benefit to the individual.  A review of research evidence by US physicians says intensive training schedules and extreme endurance competitions can cause long-term harm to people’s hearts.  Prolonged physical endurance provides little benefit to the heart than what is desirable.

Adrenaline junkie, death chaser, ludacris or crazy are some of the tags people give to those who go for extreme kinds of sports with less regard to safety measures and the discipline itself.  Extreme sports such as Muay Tai, rock climbing, cliff diving and sky diving are sports which indeed risk the life and limb of the person.  Although, there is a higher discipline and theology involved from engaging into such activities but the risk that it calculates to a person definitely outweighs the discipline itself.

Many people engaged into cliff diving would say that it is a magnificent upgrade of the regular pool diving that many people watch athletes compete in national television.  They say cliff diving requires acrobatic perfection of diving into a natural pool of water from a high cliff.  Sure, one would see an awesome picturesque while taking that leap of chance of coming out of the water alive, but considering the height and dimension of the rugged edges of the cliff, not to mention the rough rocks at the bottom of the cliff makes the dive very dangerous.  For cliff divers, aware of these things, this will give them a thrill that will last for a lifetime.

While some would call the sport as “crazy”, adventurers who venture into the sport say one must have extreme courage, focus and precision.  There should almost be no margin for error, otherwise you are bound to unconsciousness or even death.  For curious folks out there who want to give it a try, it is advised that there should first be a determination of the height of the jump and an ideal speed and pace for the entire jump.  The ideal height should be within the ranges of 23 – 28 meters for men and 18 – 23 meters for women.

These kinds of sports all define life a little better y facing death at the face every time a leap is taken to sky dive or cliff dive or every time a step is taken to climb a steep rock.  This not only requires physical preparation but emotional and spiritual as well.

With differing tastes among audiences, American Football and Rugby have placed their fans on the opposite sides of debates unto whose sport is the most entertaining.  Although, at the outset, the game mechanics of both games mainly involve the delivery of the ball to the opponent’s side for a win.  The execution is what matters and is the adventure for many sports enthusiasts.  And it is in this part that most injuries and many dangers are involved.

According to a study conducted for the National Collegiate Athletic Association, concussions suffered by college football players in games were 26 percent lower last year than seven years earlier.  The survey by Indianapolis-based Datalys Center showed the incidence of concussions in all three football divisions was 2.5 per 1,000 players who took the field for a game in the 2011-2012 season as compared to 3.4 per 1,000 in 2004-2005.

On the other hand, injuries in the rugby field were established recently as the Wallabies face a potentially destructive injury to their rankings as well unless all Australian rugby stakeholders buy into a new national player welfare program, according to ARU high performance boss David Nucifora.  Nucifora’s warning comes as Australian rugby experiences an unprecedented injury crisis, with more than a full, 22-man team of Wallabies stars currently sitting on the sidelines, and even more busted players at Super Rugby level, Foxsports Australia Reports.  The volume of injuries, not only this year but also in 2011 as well, has rung alarm bells at the ARU, who have ramped up the introduction of a high-tech, 12-month player welfare management system at national and state levels, the news outfit reported.