EXERCISE; HOW MUCH IS ENOUGH?
By Bernard L. Gladieux, Jr.
Periodically pronouncements emanate from the mountaintops of the life sciences citing some new evidence of a new minimum standard of hours or minutes per week or day of aerobic or anaerobic exercise necessary for minimum fitness or health or longevity. It can be confusing – even if you listen carefully.
The looser standard may be good news for folks who don’t like or who can’t perform or who are too busy for regular, vigorous physical activity, and it may help to allay some of the stress producing anxiety that haunts the reluctantly inert. But for those of us who have accepted the twenty minute, thrice a week paradigm, the shifting sands of minimum workout prescriptions are a stirred pot that leave us to wonder how much is enough. The answer, of course is…”It depends.”
For Longevity:
If your primary objective is to stay alive as long as possible, it does appear that regular, moderate physical exercise improves your chances of not dying prematurely from the various diseases and conditions that are associated with being sedentary. It does seem that rather short and rather moderate physical effort, done daily may give you the best shot at living a relatively long time, all else being equal.
But being active will work to extend life best when it is practiced in combination with good dietary habits, a healthy environment, low stress, not smoking and with hereditary factors that you are born with. So, if a long life is your first priority, it is probably wise to stay modestly active with the minimum of excess in any area of your lifestyle.
For Good Health:
Staying healthy is associated with, but is not the same as, being fit.Being healthy means traditionally, being free of sickness and injury; it also means being resistant to these risks, as in robust and careful. Research has shown that fairly vigorous aerobic activity does make the body physically stronger and, at the same time, it enhances the body’s immune responses. Modest activity of the kind that seems to enhance longevity may not provide these effects in the same degree as more vigorous activity. On the other hand, seriously intensive physical training and competition tends to suppress the immune system and to produce tissue injuries. Marathon and ultra-marathon, Iron Man Triathlon and Tour de France level cycling, both training and competing fall into this category.
The challenge to the lifelong athlete is to find the optimal balance between too much and too little at every stage in the athletic career and to know when to make adjustments to accommodate changes that come with age, the seasons and other interests and responsibilities that vie for attention along the way.
Performance:
When you train for serious competition or an unusual challenge like a marathon, you soon discover that your health and fitness cease to be ends in themselves. Instead they become prerequisites for the achievement of your personal, often intangiblegoals. These are the goals that drive the athletic will. Under control and in balance, they can be among the most powerful motivational forces, instruments both of high achievement and great satisfaction. Unchecked they can lead the unsuspecting athlete down a primrose path to disaster.
It is best to know where you are and where you are going at all times. When such knowledge is not immediately apparent, keep your antennae up, ready to receive whatever signal is in the air. In the meantime, as long as you enjoy your active lifestyle and feel good, keep moving.
In Good Health,
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