SportsMedicine of Atlanta

CARING FOR ATHLETES

MODERATE EXERCISE IS EXERCISE OF CHOICE

Contrary to our Western culture’s popular belief that you need to rigorously exercise to receive any health or training dividends, scientists have recently proven that only moderate levels of exercise are necessary.  Unfortunately our Western culture has mentally conditioned us to listen more to advertising ploys and sex-selling gimmicks than to actual proven scientific facts.  Advertisements and non-scientific celebrity endorsements tend to have far more effect onto our society’s thought and decision-making processes than does the announcement of meaningful scientific research results.  Likewise, our culture’s media have become conditioned and accustomed to quickly extending their ear and pen to such notables as Jane Fonda and her non-scientific exercise ideas and videos.  As a result, our society has make Jane Fonda an exercise guru and extremely wealthy when, in face, she has no formal education background or professional training in the areas that she portrays expertise.  Sorrowfully, she has successfully gathered a blind following of our society utilizing non-scientific exercise videotapes.

Recent research has proven that Jane Fonda’s proclamation of “NO PAIN, NO GAIN” could not be further from scientific fact.  Unfortunately, many Americans have come to associate healthful exercise with a need to experience pain during an exercise workout.  In 1983, researchers at Harvard and Stanford Universities concluded a study on 17,000 men unveiling that moderate levels of exercise actually prolongs life.  In the study, low to moderate levels of exercise were found to decrease heart and circulatory disease, to include lowering of high blood pressure.  However, sedentary men were found to have twice the chance of developing life threatening cardiovascular disease than those men who lead an active lifestyle characterized by moderate levels of exercise.  The most enlightening results of the study revealed that only moderate levels of exercise were necessary to accomplish a lower death rate and other preventive benefactors, such as, lowering blood pressure and lower cholesterol levels.

Dr. Ralph Paffenbarger, epidemiologist of both Harvard and Stanford Universities and leader of said research, states that significant health benefits were obtained with exercise workouts that are not overwhelming or overbearing.  In fact, exercise in the form of walking the stairs instead of taking an elevator or parking your auto a further distance out in the parking lot results in providing favorable health dividends that can prolong life and lower your chances of cardiovascular disease.  The research findings that health is promoted with simple tasks which can be conveniently fitted into your daily schedule are great news for everyone.  No longer do we actually have to join a health club or jog long miles to get healthful gains.  Yes, you can gain with pain!  According to the research, men whose regular habits included walking, climbing stairs, and playing any recreational activity which causes them to burn 2000 kilocalories per week of energy (moderate exercise) was sufficient to significantly decrease cardiovascular problems.

Just how much exercise is moderate exercise to burn 2000 kilocalories?

For example, if you were able to take a brisk one-hour walk four times a week, you would meet the 2000-kilocalorie criteria to lower your chances of cardiovascular disease.  Other activities such as walking stairs instead of using the elevator or regular hobby work like lawn work or gardening are excellent and convenient.  Anyone who plays tennis or racquetball three times a week easily gets into the cardiovascular health promotion category.

However, care should be taken not to fall victim to the old American adage that if a little is good, a lot is better.  In fact, most Americans do overdo it.  Activities such as jogging instead of walking seem more “macho” and health promoting.  The positive cardiovascular gain of jogging is only slightly better than walking while the negative musculoskeletal liability substantially increases.  All too often I see patients who have seriously injured themselves while trying to promote their health.  The complaints of osteoarthritis, tendonitis, sprains and strains are all preventable and frequently a result of an over zealous effort to help promote health.  These fitness consumers had good intentions but were manipulated by misinformation that bombards us all.  By being aware that only moderate but regular levels of exercise will promote your health, you can benefit from lower cardiovascular disease while not increasing your chances of musculoskeletal problems.  Using moderate amounts of regular exercise will prevent you from training one system at a costly, and perhaps insidious, expense of another body system.

FITNESS AND SURVIVAL

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