Physicians are educated and trained to treat diseases and save lives. This is particularly noticeable and valued among cardiologists. However, not every physician, living a busy professional life, manages to see the other “extreme”. We quite often fall ill because we do not properly take care of our health, by failing to adopt a healthy lifestyle and to embrace the most recommended preventive strategies. It seems increasingly important to anticipate the disease and act to prevent it. In such context, the regular practice of physical exercise becomes a significant, if not the major priority. However, there is this natural clinical concern about “excessive” exercise practice, which would jeopardize the health and the physical integrity of the individuals. The study by our Portuguese and Swedish coleagues published in this issue of the International Journal of Cardiovascular Sciences is worth reading.

Dinis et al. have studied 76 young Portuguese individuals who had already achieved high levels of regular physical activity (> 10 hours/weeks) before entering a special military training program. That special training program consisted of 20 hours of different types of exercise practice at a purposely high intensity, divided into five days a week for 35 weeks. Because of the extremely rigorous characteristic of that special program, only 17 of those young individuals, all with previous experience on sports competition, managed to complete the 35-week training.

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