Exercise does more than give you a buff body. More importantly, it helps protect your heart and health. Regular exercise has many health benefits including weight loss and maintenance, physical and cardiovascular fitness, and a decreased risk of heart disease, osteoporosis, and other serious illnesses. Fit people also live longer than people who don't exercise.
For fitness and health benefits, the American Heart Association (AHA) and the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) recommend regular, moderate-intensity physical activity for at least thirty minutes, most days of the week. Choose aerobic activities you enjoy such as walking, biking, jogging, dancing, and gardening. Shorter workouts can be just as effective as one longer workout. You can divide the thirty minute workouts into two fifteen minute or three ten minute exercise segments.
A study published in Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise found that multiple short walks were just as effective as one long walk in improving aerobic fitness and health. "These findings suggest that three short bouts (10 min) of brisk walking accumulated throughout the day are at least as effective as one continuous bout of equal total duration in reducing cardiovascular risk and improving aspects of mood in previously sedentary individuals," the study authors conclude.
You can derive exercise benefits at any age. A study published in the Journal of the American Geriatric Society found that participants aged 80 and older derived significant heart and health benefits by exercising aerobically for just 20 minutes, twice a week.
Another study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association reports that being physically fit may be more important than being slim, to help prevent heart disease. Researchers found that participants who were more fit were less likely to develop heart disease than participants who were less fit, despite their weight.
"Among women undergoing coronary angiography for suspected ischemia, higher self-reported physical fitness scores were independently associated with fewer CAD (coronary artery disease) risk factors, less angiographic CAD, and lower risk for adverse CV (cardiovascular) events," the study authors write. "Measures of obesity were not independently associated with these outcomes."
REFERENCES:
1. Murphy M et al. Accumulating brisk walking for fitness, cardiovascular risk, and psychological health. Med Sci Sports Exerc 2002 Sep;34(9):1468-74.
2. Vaitkevicius PV et al. Effects of aerobic exercise training in community-based subjects aged 80 and older: a pilot study. J Am Geriatr Soc 2002 Dec;50(12):2009-13.
3. Wessel TR. Relationship of physical fitness vs body mass index with coronary artery disease and cardiovascular events in women. JAMA 2004 Sep 8;292(10):1179-87.
Posted by Elaine Gavalas on September 12, 2006 02:13 PM
