starts with a 2.4-mile dip. The next phase is a 112-mile bike ride. If this is not enough, the last leg of the race is a 26.2-mile race - a complete marathon. It is a triathlon - and the most famous is known as Ironman. Why did anyone in your right mind wanted to submit to this agony?
"There is an innate feature in some people," says Justin Anderson, Psyd, a sports consultant for the center of sports psychology in Denton, Texas. "Some people are activated by these things; they have a lot of adrenaline and gravitate in relation to the activities that give them this feeling. For some, it is jumping from airplanes, to others, is climbing Mt. Everest, and for others, is the Ironman. When they find this sport or activity that gives them that feeling, they say there is nothing better. "
What is their motivation and why people keep pushing the envelope to the most extreme, never feeling satisfied with the last achievement? Why does the rest of us covers our internal voyeurs when X-games are on TV? And why do we find pleasure in watching extreme athletes risk their lives? Experts, along with an Ironman who is in training for his third competition, gives WebMD the science behind the race.
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So, what makes a person push beyond the limits, when the rest of us are sitting comfortably on our sofa? Its motivation stems from achieving a goal and being competitive.
"The researchers [were] discovered that the main difference between the elite and the non-chorus triathlete was that the goal was fundamental, and the competition was the second factor," says Lester Mayers, MD, director of sports medicine in Pace University in Pleasantville NY
The goal, be crossing the finish line after a squeezing triathlon or reaching the peak of 29,035 feet of the highest mountain in the world, is the holy grail; Realizing it with a competitive advantage is what this small and elite group of people look for. It is also to know that you are one of the few who dared to dream - and reached that dream.
"It's a sense of identity," says Mayers. "Triathlon is not a sport that is crammed full of people. There are only a handful of people who have the ability to train and make this done."
While comparing in a group of elite athletes can bring money, fame and glory, more important to some, also brings a healthy dose of respect.
"Skiing from the top of a mountain where a helicopter leaves you alone, or jumping from airplanes, I have the feeling that these people have a sense of identity and this identity is important to them because they feel that they gain them respect" Mayers tells WebMD. "Caring for athletes like I do, my own personal opinion is that the most important desire they have is for respect."
When it comes to radical sports, the adrenaline factor probably plays a role in explaining why athletes also reach external limits.
An "adrenaline" occurs when the supra-renal gland is stimulated through an activity that causes stress in the body, and certainly extreme sports such as backcountry snowboard and bumping bungee, fall into the category to cause stress. According to the University of Maryland Endocrinology Health Guide, stimulation of adrenal gland releases a series of hormones, including epinephrine or adrenaline. This increases the heart rate and the strength of cardiac contractions, facilitates blood flow to muscles and brain, causes relaxation of smooth muscles and helps with glycogen conversion to glucose in the liver. For extreme athletes, this adrenaline is a feeling that can not come enough.
"Many extreme athletes report that they are looking for this race," says Anderson. "They are looking for these sensations that they receive from putting their life on the line."
It's a feeling that can not be duplicated in any other activity, and for many, explains Anderson, it's a real feeling of feeling alive.
"The emotion that adrenaline feeds is a high sensation of being alive," Anderson says WebMD. "All your senses are on an acute level of conscience, and it is this fight or flight response. They do this and live - or die. That's what they're playing, and this is a very primitive thing that is happening."
So why is your last achievement ever good enough? Why do extreme athletes ever need to push you to the next level, closer to the edge?
"Extreme athletes say it is the law of decreasing returns," says Anderson. "Achieving the same goal repeatedly does not bring the same amount of excitement you made the first time, so they want to push the envelope and go to the next big goal."Take the free dip, for example, explains Anderson. "People who release diving without oxygen tank are always deeper and deeper in the ocean with just a breath," he says. "They are never satisfied with the last dive."
It is the risk that is attractive and the most risky, the better.
"The mentality is that people who are attracted to extreme sports are risk takers," says Jenn Berman, PhD, a psychologist in private practice in Beverly Hills, California, who was a member of the 1984 Olympic Exhibition team fitness . "It's just that they like to strive to the limit - physically, emotionally and of all possible ways."
There is always another goal to be set and achieved, and the bar is only climbing up.
"Each time they have a success, they want to strive further. Any great athlete tends to do this, but this is especially true in radical sports," says Berman. "Once they realize something, they will start losing the rush, so they have to try harder and set the highest bar."
Experts say it is about goals, competition, respect, adrenaline and always reaching the next level. Rick Hall, a registered dietetics and an Ironman athlete twice, explains how they are right.
"Compete in Ironman is just for me," says Hall. "It's the ability to say that I did it. You're pushing my body to your absolute limits. I'm competitive in nature in life and business, but when it comes to competing as an anthlete at the Ironman level, it's about self-competition. And how well I can do and what my best staff can be. "
While the hall explains that during the event he usually wonders why he would put himself through such agony; The answer is clear when the end is in sight.
"It's a long-term event, and several times during the day, and when you're out in the middle of nowhere and you're away from the spectators, you think, 'Why am I doing this?'" Says Hall. "But you get to the finish line, and answer these questions at once. It's an absolute adrenaline, and it's very emotional."
At the end of the Ironman, there are thousands of people screaming for competitors to put one foot in front of each other and cross the line.
"It's one of the few sports where there's no booing - everyone wants you to succeed and they're screaming for you because you just made a huge achievement," says Hall. "When I cross the finish line, I'm ready to sign up for the next. For me, this is a big rush, and it lasts several weeks."
Hall - who completed his second Ironeiro at best (for an hour) than his first - is already training for number 3 in 2007.
"There is a statistic out there that says less than half a percentage of the world population can complete a regular marathon," says Hall. "Now consider adding a bicycle of 2.4 miles mile and 112 miles [ride] for this, and you can imagine that there are not many people who can say they can do this, or have done it."
Most of us are glad to play the role of the screaming fan at the end of an Ironman, standing while the elite athletes like the hall cross the finish line. Why do we like to watch others endure blood, sweat and tears of extreme competition?
"Why do we like to watch Nascar? Boxing?" Ask Berman. "It is human nature to have curiosity about the outcome of sports so extreme and how people can challenge death."
