exercise

Slowly the parameters of our world of physical abilities creep in on us. Each year we have a little less strength, stamina, flexibility, and ability to withstand infection and trauma.

We lose a few ounces of muscle, a little range of motion each year, and a few seconds off our personal records. This process will occur more quickly if we are not active. When we exercise we are placing demands on the body that send a message to the body that the stamina, muscle, and flexibility are needed for survival. The body will do what it can do accommodate those demands as an act self-protection.

How often does the body need to be exercised? Too much exercise can result in taking steps backward when there are repetitive-use injuries or when there is insufficient recovery from the stress of exercise. The body need not be constantly stimulated to retain or add to our physical abilities. In one flexibility study one group stretched three days a week and the other group stretched five times a week. At the end of the study both groups increased their flexibility by an equal amount.

At 78 years of age Jack had few golfers his age to golf with. His friend Marcus was 73 and about ready to hang up his cleats for good. Marcus could play nine holes and that was about it; the next day he’d be too rundown to play again. Jack insisted that Marcus start doing the strength training program Jack had been doing for years. Jack said, "Anybody can stick to one half hour a week. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain."

A year later Marcus was playing 18 holes of golf, and the next day, he would play 18 holes again. He was hitting the ball farther and enjoying golf again. Marcus had added quality years to his life, and it took just minutes a week.

Every time Marcus exercised he would do a little more. Each week he gave himself ample time to recover, and because of that each week he would improve.  52 weeks of continuing improvement add up.

Several years ago I was working out a doctor who described to me the phenomenon of creep. As we get older our physical abilities diminish. Each year we have a little less strength, stamina, flexibility, and ability to withstand trauma and infection.

Slowly the parameters of our world of physical abilities creep in on us. I researched the phenomena of creep and found nothing that was similar to what the doctor described. I think the phenomenon was one the doctor himself coined. Nonetheless, it is very real. We lose a few seconds off our personal records, a few ounce of muscle, and a little range of motion each year. This process will occur more quickly if we are not active. When we exercise we are placing demands on the body that send a message to the body that the muscle, flexibility and stamina are needed for survival. As an act self-protection the body will do what it can do accommodate those demands.

One can live well without requiring hours each week engaged in monotonous exercise. Significant strength increases occur exercising as little as once or twice a week IF it's the right exercise program with the right trainer.

Such a workout can be very demanding, but people or any age or fitness level can do this and benefit from it. Clients slowly build up to a level they can handle. It is an attractive alternative for those who often don't have time for exercise.

From this Wall Street Journal article GE's Bob Wright Stays Strong By Lifting Weights Very Slowly:

“Workouts typically consist of one set of six to 12 exercises with little rest between sets…. trainers find a weight load that renders muscle fatigue in 60 to 90 seconds, and take clients through a full-body workout in approximately 30 minutes”.

From this article, Impact of exercise intensity on body fatness and skeletal muscle metabolism, this quote:

“The metabolic adaptations taking place in the skeletal muscle in response to the HIIT program appear to favor the process of lipid oxidation”.

And this:

“Despite its lower energy cost, the High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) program induced a more pronounced reduction in subcutaneous adiposity compared with the ET program. When corrected for the energy cost of training, the decrease in the sum of six subcutaneous skinfolds induced by the HIIT program was ninefold greater than by the endurance training (ET) program”

If you want to get the most for your minimal free time or if you hate to exercise HIIT will burn more calories for the time spent. Calories are burned four ways with this workout:

From this NTY article Why Trainers Say, 'Slow Down':

"Of the tens of thousands of Americans who pay as much as $180 to register for marathons, as many as 25% fail to make it to the race. Injury, illness and loss of motivation as a result of overtraining are major reasons for this."

"No matter how conclusively science may prove the value of rest and recovery, the culture of endurance sports lionizes those who seemingly never rest."

"The body responds beautifully to the right schedule of training stresses," Lynn Bjorklund, who in 1981 set the still-standing female course record for the Pikes Peak Marathon, wrote in an email. "However, too much stress and not enough nutrition or recovery pushes your body toward injury and illness. You need to stay in that zone of just enough, and that takes a very high tuned and honest appraisal of yourself."

From this Science News article Muscles remember past glory:

"Muscles hold memories of their former fitness in nuclei (green, shown on muscle fiber) that help the muscle bounce back to fitness when training begins after a period of inactivity.

Pumping up is easier for people who have been buff before, and now scientists think they know why — muscles retain a memory of their former fitness even as they wither from lack of use.

That memory is stored as DNA-containing nuclei, which proliferate when a muscle is exercised. Contrary to previous thinking, those nuclei aren’t lost when muscles atrophy, researchers report online August 16 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The extra nuclei form a type of muscle memory that allows the muscle to bounce back quickly when retrained.

The new study suggests that pumping muscles full of nuclei early in life could help stave off muscle loss with age."

Exercise increases the production of free radicals, and free radicals have been associated with a number of diseases and with aging.  To combat those free radicals people have taken to popping Vitamins C and D, antioxidants, to decrease the number of free radicals. New research indicates that that might not be a good idea.

 In one study with two groups of exercising rats, one group was injected with antioxidants, and the other group was not. The group of rats injected with antioxidants showed almost no free-radical activity, while the non-injected group had a high level of free radicals.

There were other differences as well.  From this NYT article, Phys Ed: Free the Free Radicals more findings from the study:

You’ve seen them performed in aerobics classes. You raise your leg out from your side while standing, while on all fours, or while lying on your side. This is done repeated with one leg and then the other. All the different permutations of sets of legs lifts are performed at least once and sometimes later in the class the raises are repeated.