Perfomance and Health Is Not a Binary Issue, They Go Hand in Hand: A Congruent Perspective

The paradoxical paradigm between performance and health was introduced during the eighties and nineties. Due to the dichotomy between performance and health variables, as well as reports published by the main communication channels, this discourse has been gaining strength, cause some degree of confusion on this subject. On the other hand, the modernization of scientific methods, may be able to provide a more cohesive understanding of the paradoxical paradigm: performance and health. Therefore, the purpose is to offer a congruent perspective between performance and health based in science. Eleven items directly or indirectly related to health were compared between non-athletes and athletes in an attempt to strengthen the congruent perspective between performance and health, they are: a) autonomic nervous system; b) immune function; c) gut microbial; d) bone mineral density; e) vascular health; f) breast cancer and cancer of the reproductive and non-reproductive system; g) redox balance and telomere length; h) concussion rehabilitation; i) sleep quality; j) social connectedness and happiness and k) quality of life. In conclusion, we suggest that health-related benefits appear to precede adaptations associated to performance, making it reasonable to infer that it seems impossible to improve performance without being healthy. It seems that this paradigm does not have a strong support.