Literally every single cell in your body contains water. In fact most cells - besides fat cells - comprise more water than other solid materials. There is an occasional debate between scientists and doctors as to how much of your body weight is water - some say about 65% others give numbers up to 85% - but either way it is a lot. A 185 pound man holds about 120 pounds of water! A popular TV show once called humans “ugly bags of mostly water”. I don’t agree with the ugly part, but we certainly are mostly water.
As it turns out, water is a very active molecule. Science bases much of its points of reference on the properties of water. Compared to other molecular compounds, water is transferred from solid to liquid to gas fairly easily. Because water is so productive, however, it constantly needs to be cycled within our body. The cycle is simply the regular intake, decomposition, and expulsion of the H2O water molecule. Remember, water is in every single cell in your body, but each cell may use that water a little differently.
Interestingly, water is actually a waste product of a variety of chemical processes in the body as well as a nutrient and source of energy. With all this water moving around inside of you, your body has also evolved in such a manner that makes it very good at releasing this molecule into the air. You continuously excrete water through your skin - albeit slowly - and as we all know, if your body temperature rises, you release a combination of water and electrolytes called sweat. Every time you breathe, blow your nose, or make that trip to the rest room, you are releasing water. You body doesn’t have any direct means of putting that water back, however, at least not without some conscious action from you.
It is very easy to take in water. Because there is water in every living thing, each time you eat or drink anything, you get a little water in you. Usually, if something is in liquid form such that it is drinkable, it is because that substance is full of water so drinking, as you would expect, is the best way to replace water. Drinking pure water is the best way to ensure that your body can do with your new hydration what it likes as well. If you drink something - fruit juice, soda, alcohol - that contains some flavoring or other components other than the basic water, those components have to be digested and used like anything else. Your body actually measures its necessity for nutrients and food based upon the balance that exists between various essential minerals and electrolytes and water. If you have too much water, your body will simply tell you to go to the rest room. If you have too little, you will feel thirsty. Oddly enough, though, over time our sensory perception of thirsty has become muddled a little bit. Sometimes the sensation of thirst can be confused with the sensation of hunger so instead of drinking something, we eat something - forcing our body to use water to digest - making us more thirsty. It is sort of a goofy conundrum.
In order to digest just about anything your body combines the food with water and flushes it out of your system. If you drink a soda which is loaded with water, sugar (even fake sugar) and caffeine, you’ll actually have to release the water in order to digest the other substances. The same is true for fruit juice, although some of the substances found in fruit juice are helpful in their own right. Alcohol actually goes beyond the regular combining process for digestion and attracts extra water, forcing your body to release even more of it’s hydration that it typically might. It is, therefore, important that we drink pure water frequently - several times a day. This is not to say that we shouldn’t indulge in juice, soda or even alcohol, but you aren’t helping your body as much as you can if these are the only substances you are willing to drink.
So how much water do we need? Basic health information dictates that we should drink eight, eight ounce glasses of water a day at minimum. An eight ounce glass of water is only the volume of one cup so it’s not that hard to get this amount of water into yourself at one sitting. If you are active, you are probably creating sweat and increasing your breathing meaning you need to replace more water. If you are consistently active, look to taking in 12 to 15 eight ounce glasses of water per day. Carrying a water bottle around with you and taking frequent sips or gulps is a great way to constantly hydrate yourself. Most individual size water bottles contain between 12 and 16 ounces. If you manage to drink the water contents of that bottle five or six times in a day, you’ve got plenty of water in your system (remember that you will take in water from other sources as well).
You can actually tell if you are drinking enough water each time you go to the rest room. If your urine is clear, it means that your body is releasing more water than other nutrients and, therefore, has plenty of water to keep itself going. If, however, your urine is a dark shade of yellow, your body is actually releasing nutrients in an effort to hold onto water in your system. These nutrients could have been used if you had enough hydration to handle them, but your body needs to conserve water so do it a favor - drink a glass or two. The exception to this indicator occurs if you take vitamins of some sort. Usually vitamins contain much more of a particular compound than your body needs at that moment so it will use what it can and release the rest, causing your urine to be a bright yellow. If you are taking a vitamin and drinking enough water, this yellow excretion should only happen once a day within a few hours of taking the vitamin.
Because your body operates on a balance of nutrients and water, we can assume that proper hydration is also a function of correct amounts of elements like sodium, potassium and other electrolytes in your system. This balance is the reason we now have sports drinks. The creators of these drinks recognized that a highly active person will lose significant amounts of nutrients along with water loss when they sweat and consume energy. Sports drinks contain elements like potassium, sodium, sugars and occasionally other vitamins and minerals which may aid the body in recovery of worn tissues and lost energy. The key to the purpose of these drinks, however, is for whom they were designed - highly active people. There is a lot of sugar in sports drinks. It is put there intentionally to replace lost energy as a highly active person is exerting work. These sugars are simple and quickly absorbed into the body and, if you are working very hard, quickly used as energy. If you are not a highly active person and if you are not engaging in extreme activity at the time you take a drink, there is no reason to need a sports drink.
Also, sports drinks are often very concentrated when bought off the shelf both to replenish nutrients lost from highly active athletes and for taste. Ultimately there is too much sugar in these drinks for the average person or even the average workout. I as a personal trainer who engages in very difficult workouts, wont consume a sports drink at its full concentration. Certainly the electrolytes in these drinks help during a workout so one way to get those nutrients and some of the energy necessary to complete your exercise is to cut the regular concentration of the drink with water. Pour out and save half of your regular sports drink, then refill the bottle with water. At this concentration you will have plenty of electrolyte replenishment for your workout without excess sugar.
Believe it or not, it is possible to drink too much water. This rare condition occurs when the body contains so much water relative to its accessible electrolytes that it literally shuts down because there ceases to be proper nutrient passage between cells. Hyper-hydration or the excess of water in balance to electrolytes is very dangerous and frequently fatal, however it is a condition which is very difficult to achieve. If you are a very long endurance athlete like a marathoner, distance triathlete, ironman/woman, or other extreme distance competitor you may need to consider hyper-hydration. Because your body releases electrolytes in sweat, if, during your extended activity (over the course of several hours) you only replenish yourself with water, you have a chance to create this imbalance. If you are in an organized even, the organizers are usually aware of this problem and will offer more than just water at check-stops. Now you’ll find sports drinks, energy bars, fruit, and even gummy bears to replenish the sugars in your body as well as the water. These other items can be helpful in maintaining the balance in your system. Another way to induce hyper-hydration is simply to drink too much water at one time without allowing your body to release it. You’d have to drink water at a magnitude of several gallons in an hour to achieve this level of imbalance. No one is ever that thirsty, and you stomach would be painfully full before you manage to drink too much. A radio contestant once managed to drink so much water as to induce hyper-hydration, but this was a contest and essentially no one does this on their own.
So even with water - as anything - going overboard can be detrimental to your body. Fortunately water is one of the main driving forces of life as we know it so too much water is a condition very difficult to achieve. Too little water, however, is frequently a problem afflicting many people in regular life. You need to make sure your body is getting plenty of pure water every day - to keep you systems running properly, for nutrition, and even to ward off infection. Just remember, at least 8, 8 ounce glasses per day and more than that if you are going to do anything active. Make sure that your body remains “mostly water”.
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Is Stretching Necessary?
The simple answer to the question, “is stretching necessary?”, is no. Stretching is not a completely imperative part of physical health. It is, however, extremely beneficial to stretch and maintain flexibility.
Your body is very good at adapting to the various stresses you put on it every day. Whether those stresses require mild exertion like sitting at a desk or great exertion like playing professional sports, your body will adapt to that particular activity in more ways than you might expect ... and in some ways you wish it wouldn’t. Sitting at a desk all day forces parts of your body like your back and your hips to be in a state of constant stress due to the weight of gravity on your body. Over time (maybe a few years) your body will adjust its structure to better suit the stresses of sitting at a desk. Unfortunately, the rigors of sitting at a desk don’t translate well to the rigors of walking or other exercise and, therefore, this new structure your body is creating is causing other activities to become more difficult.
A professional athlete is similarly afflicted with a body that gets very good at one or a series of movements. Because these movements are repeated over and over, the athlete’s body adjusts for those movements and doesn’t account for others not associated with the sport. Look at a tennis player’s arms for instance. The arm they use to swing the racket is going to be much more defined and often larger than the one that doesn’t do the swinging. This sort of imbalance is not going to affect the tennis player that much because they never really need that secondary arm for their daily activity. In contrast, if your body is adjusted to sit at a desk, it may be much less comfortable standing upright - a position which is certainly necessary for every person.
Maintaining flexibility is one way to counteract the affects of your body’s adjustment to your common activities. If your tissues remain flexible, your body will at least have the ability to achieve a task you don’t require of it very often. If you sit at a desk frequently, but enjoy playing golf once in a while for example, the two activities don’t work well together. Stretching and flexibility are imperative for golf even though your body is trying to deny you those traits by adjusting to sitting in a chair.
Essentially stretching helps your body maintain what is called a normal range of motion or ROM relative to your bone and muscle structure. Certainly some people are genetically more flexible than others, but this does not mean that they should not or need not stretch. In terms of health and balance, we can’t easily compare our body to someone else's because they have different genetics and may engage in different activities than we do. The best way to determine our relative flexibility is to compare alternate sides of your own body. If your right leg stretches more easily than the left, we need to spend more time stretching the left. If you can bend your body to the left more easily than the right, you need to work on bending to the right. Keeping your body in a balance of flexibility helps maintain a proper ROM for the activities you plan on pursuing.
Recently, it was also discovered that static stretching after a strength workout actually increases strength gains by as much as 5%. So even if your goal is to have the appearance of large, solid muscles, keeping them flexible will help in your pursuit.
There are three basic types of stretching: static, dynamic, and ballistic. Static stretching is the classic method of lengthening a muscle or group of muscles and holding that position for a period of time. Touching your toes, splits, and hurdler stretches are common versions of static stretching. The static stretch is the one which is most effective at the end of a strength workout. A static stretch should be held for at least 30 seconds to maintain current flexibility and longer if you wish to increase your flexibility. Holding a static stretch for only a few seconds may actually be detrimental to your ROM if you don’t return to that static stretch again several times in succession. Another method for static stretch, therefore, is to hold a position for 5-10 seconds, relieving that position and then repeating the stretch for several bouts of 5-10 seconds each.
Dynamic stretching is the most natural stretch and is the reason that a tennis player’s dominant arm, while larger than the secondary, is often more flexible and has a greater ROM. Dynamic stretch is the result of repeatedly exceeding the traditional range of a muscle structure and then exerting force with that same structure. A good example of a dynamic stretch would be a dancer or martial artist swinging their leg forward and back to the limits of their muscle range many times in a row (about 30 or more). Similarly, swimmers dynamically stretch their shoulders each time they take a stroke. Unless you are well familiar with the function of the human body, it is difficult to create your own dynamic stretches, but there are several publications out on the subject if you want to incorporate this type of stretching into your workout. Dynamic stretching is also an excellent alternative to the traditional warm up for most activity.
Ballistic stretching is very similar to dynamic stretching and often looks the same but the effects are nothing alike. Ballistic stretching involves actively exceeding the natural ROM of a particular body part like dynamic stretching, but it does not include a full contraction of the same muscle group to return to the original un-stretched position. Ballistic stretching is traditionally known as “bouncing” in an otherwise static position. This sort of technique can actually serve to restrict, not enhance the ROM of a structure and often fatigues essential mechanisms in your muscles and tendons which are designed to protect your body from dislocated joints. Regular ballistic stretching practice will often contribute to future injury and may even be the cause of injury. Ballistic stretching is an unnecessary practice and should be avoided.
Whatever type of stretching you engage in, you should incorporate it into your regular exercise routines frequently if not every day. Maintaining ROM not only ensures that your body will be capable of doing tasks other than those you regularly engage in, but also helps keep your tissues young and flexible - helping to stave off afflictions like arthritis and bone growths. Although there is no data showing that stretching is exclusively necessary for health, with all of the ways it does help to improve your body, there is little reason to exclude a good stretch.
Your body is very good at adapting to the various stresses you put on it every day. Whether those stresses require mild exertion like sitting at a desk or great exertion like playing professional sports, your body will adapt to that particular activity in more ways than you might expect ... and in some ways you wish it wouldn’t. Sitting at a desk all day forces parts of your body like your back and your hips to be in a state of constant stress due to the weight of gravity on your body. Over time (maybe a few years) your body will adjust its structure to better suit the stresses of sitting at a desk. Unfortunately, the rigors of sitting at a desk don’t translate well to the rigors of walking or other exercise and, therefore, this new structure your body is creating is causing other activities to become more difficult.
A professional athlete is similarly afflicted with a body that gets very good at one or a series of movements. Because these movements are repeated over and over, the athlete’s body adjusts for those movements and doesn’t account for others not associated with the sport. Look at a tennis player’s arms for instance. The arm they use to swing the racket is going to be much more defined and often larger than the one that doesn’t do the swinging. This sort of imbalance is not going to affect the tennis player that much because they never really need that secondary arm for their daily activity. In contrast, if your body is adjusted to sit at a desk, it may be much less comfortable standing upright - a position which is certainly necessary for every person.
Maintaining flexibility is one way to counteract the affects of your body’s adjustment to your common activities. If your tissues remain flexible, your body will at least have the ability to achieve a task you don’t require of it very often. If you sit at a desk frequently, but enjoy playing golf once in a while for example, the two activities don’t work well together. Stretching and flexibility are imperative for golf even though your body is trying to deny you those traits by adjusting to sitting in a chair.
Essentially stretching helps your body maintain what is called a normal range of motion or ROM relative to your bone and muscle structure. Certainly some people are genetically more flexible than others, but this does not mean that they should not or need not stretch. In terms of health and balance, we can’t easily compare our body to someone else's because they have different genetics and may engage in different activities than we do. The best way to determine our relative flexibility is to compare alternate sides of your own body. If your right leg stretches more easily than the left, we need to spend more time stretching the left. If you can bend your body to the left more easily than the right, you need to work on bending to the right. Keeping your body in a balance of flexibility helps maintain a proper ROM for the activities you plan on pursuing.
Recently, it was also discovered that static stretching after a strength workout actually increases strength gains by as much as 5%. So even if your goal is to have the appearance of large, solid muscles, keeping them flexible will help in your pursuit.
There are three basic types of stretching: static, dynamic, and ballistic. Static stretching is the classic method of lengthening a muscle or group of muscles and holding that position for a period of time. Touching your toes, splits, and hurdler stretches are common versions of static stretching. The static stretch is the one which is most effective at the end of a strength workout. A static stretch should be held for at least 30 seconds to maintain current flexibility and longer if you wish to increase your flexibility. Holding a static stretch for only a few seconds may actually be detrimental to your ROM if you don’t return to that static stretch again several times in succession. Another method for static stretch, therefore, is to hold a position for 5-10 seconds, relieving that position and then repeating the stretch for several bouts of 5-10 seconds each.
Dynamic stretching is the most natural stretch and is the reason that a tennis player’s dominant arm, while larger than the secondary, is often more flexible and has a greater ROM. Dynamic stretch is the result of repeatedly exceeding the traditional range of a muscle structure and then exerting force with that same structure. A good example of a dynamic stretch would be a dancer or martial artist swinging their leg forward and back to the limits of their muscle range many times in a row (about 30 or more). Similarly, swimmers dynamically stretch their shoulders each time they take a stroke. Unless you are well familiar with the function of the human body, it is difficult to create your own dynamic stretches, but there are several publications out on the subject if you want to incorporate this type of stretching into your workout. Dynamic stretching is also an excellent alternative to the traditional warm up for most activity.
Ballistic stretching is very similar to dynamic stretching and often looks the same but the effects are nothing alike. Ballistic stretching involves actively exceeding the natural ROM of a particular body part like dynamic stretching, but it does not include a full contraction of the same muscle group to return to the original un-stretched position. Ballistic stretching is traditionally known as “bouncing” in an otherwise static position. This sort of technique can actually serve to restrict, not enhance the ROM of a structure and often fatigues essential mechanisms in your muscles and tendons which are designed to protect your body from dislocated joints. Regular ballistic stretching practice will often contribute to future injury and may even be the cause of injury. Ballistic stretching is an unnecessary practice and should be avoided.
Whatever type of stretching you engage in, you should incorporate it into your regular exercise routines frequently if not every day. Maintaining ROM not only ensures that your body will be capable of doing tasks other than those you regularly engage in, but also helps keep your tissues young and flexible - helping to stave off afflictions like arthritis and bone growths. Although there is no data showing that stretching is exclusively necessary for health, with all of the ways it does help to improve your body, there is little reason to exclude a good stretch.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Exercise and Aging
As people live longer, most everyone in America has heard how important exercise is for your body as it grows older. The question is why is exercise important and the answer is very simple : flexibility. After age 30, the number one component of the body which fails most quickly is within the flexibility of the body’s tissues. This doesn’t just mean your ability to touch your toes or swing a golf club, although the lack of flexibility due to aging will be a key component for both of these activities. Flexibility is also related to non-structural tissues such as blood vessels, nerve casings, organ tissues, and even the viscosity of various fluids in your body.
Many health professionals will emphasize strength training for the aging population. This is due to recent studies which show that the body can lose 10% or more of its strength and muscle mass each decade after the age of about 35. Bone loss is also a very common boon to the aging process. Since strength training addresses both muscle and bone strength and integrity, this sort of exercise is often suggested to many people attempting to subvert the physical aging process. Strength training is an excellent method for slowing the degradation of bones and muscles, but it doesn’t address other issues like mental capacity, heart and lung strength, and ability to fight disease.
Before I go any further I should mention that aging is a very complicated process and its affects alter greatly from person to person based upon genetic factors, prior history of individual health, and current and future activity levels. Just because you exercise does not necessarily mean that you will all of a sudden live longer or more functionally than your neighbor who does not. You can’t base your own progress on someone else’s results and, therefore exercise will serve to improve your life relative to how that life would have been without the exercise, not relative to your neighbor (unless that neighbor happens to be a relative). Don’t get discouraged if you aren’t seeing as good results as your friend working with you, just remember that your body is handling your longer life of exercise the best way it knows how.
Everyone, no matter what their genetics or chosen path in life, can benefit from a healthy dose of cardio-vascular exercise in their daily life. For the younger population, this type of exercise usually means improved heart, lungs, veins and arteries, coordination, and joint and muscle function. For someone over 35 all of these characteristics apply as well as the added benefit of maintaining brain function, maintaining reproductive organ function (not necessarily the ability to bare young, but at least assisting in the absence of abnormality), maintaining digestive function, and hindering the effects of arthritis. Frequent and varied cardio training from hiking and biking to swimming or skiing is so important as we get older that practically every body system benefits as a result.
As many of us know, activity helps maintain flexibility in the physical tissues like muscles, bones, and joints. Frequent movement - tennis, walking, dancing or any other physical activity helps to maintain the inherent strength and integrity of the body structure and the muscles which hold it together. Freedom to move is one of the simplest feedoms we have and can be well maintained with proper repetitive activity. With lack of movement, the tissues and semi-liquid portions of your joints start to harden - both restricting mobility and causing pain. The only way to avoid this hardening is to keep exercising. Even your bones have flexibility related to the manner in which they consume nourishment and go through their natural building and rebuilding processes. Bone flexibility ensures fewer breaks related to impact and other unforeseen mishaps we may encounter in our daily lives.
A hardening of veins, arteries and lymph vessels (part of your immune system) restricts the ability of these systems to work properly. When your vessels harden you are more susceptible to internal pressure problems, scarring, clotting, and rupture all of which result in very serious and sometimes life threatening conditions. Again the flexibility of these tissues can be maintained with some form of cardio exercise.
It was classically thought that people could keep their mental acuity by doing “mental exercises” such as thinking games, reading, and puzzles. Thus far, there is no conclusive evidence that these activities actually maintain brain function. I’m not saying stop doing them - just because proof hasn’t been found yet doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist - but I am noting that the only result these activities have shown is better capability at solving thinking games, reading and puzzles. Cardio-vascular activity, however has actually been found to force the body to nourish the outer covering of nerves and nerve endings called the myaline sheath. In some extreme cases some studies have actually shown an increase in brain mass as a result of adhering to a new cardio routine. These results are not terribly conclusive, but even the possibility is encouraging.
Even your organs benefit from this heart pumping exercise. Cardio encourages your body to utilize oxygen and electrolytes which acts as the energy and nourishment for every one of your cells. Your liver, pancreas, stomach, lungs, intestines, and sex organs all benefit from continued activity in older age.
Hopefully I have convinced you that exercise - both cardio-vascular and strength - is extremely important as we grow older. The only question now is how much of each? Certainly it doesn’t make much sense to be doing more activity as we get older than we did when we were young and spry in our teens and early 20’s. Your body will slow down and natural processes will indeed make it more difficult to physically perform the way you did when your body was younger, but this means that to maintain some level of strength, balance and flexibility as we age, we must in fact put more effort into that maintenance. If you have the time, spend more time exercising when you are older than you did when you were young. Certainly not to the intensity you did when you were younger and don’t just jump right into it if you have been without exercise for a while, but your body will respond to exercise as you age the same as when it was younger - just more slowly. If you have the time to invest three or four hours a day of good physical activity whether that activity be in the gym, on the golf course, or anywhere else ... do it! Keeping your body active truly is the secret to everlasting life - at least everlasting capability and independence through a longer life.
Many health professionals will emphasize strength training for the aging population. This is due to recent studies which show that the body can lose 10% or more of its strength and muscle mass each decade after the age of about 35. Bone loss is also a very common boon to the aging process. Since strength training addresses both muscle and bone strength and integrity, this sort of exercise is often suggested to many people attempting to subvert the physical aging process. Strength training is an excellent method for slowing the degradation of bones and muscles, but it doesn’t address other issues like mental capacity, heart and lung strength, and ability to fight disease.
Before I go any further I should mention that aging is a very complicated process and its affects alter greatly from person to person based upon genetic factors, prior history of individual health, and current and future activity levels. Just because you exercise does not necessarily mean that you will all of a sudden live longer or more functionally than your neighbor who does not. You can’t base your own progress on someone else’s results and, therefore exercise will serve to improve your life relative to how that life would have been without the exercise, not relative to your neighbor (unless that neighbor happens to be a relative). Don’t get discouraged if you aren’t seeing as good results as your friend working with you, just remember that your body is handling your longer life of exercise the best way it knows how.
Everyone, no matter what their genetics or chosen path in life, can benefit from a healthy dose of cardio-vascular exercise in their daily life. For the younger population, this type of exercise usually means improved heart, lungs, veins and arteries, coordination, and joint and muscle function. For someone over 35 all of these characteristics apply as well as the added benefit of maintaining brain function, maintaining reproductive organ function (not necessarily the ability to bare young, but at least assisting in the absence of abnormality), maintaining digestive function, and hindering the effects of arthritis. Frequent and varied cardio training from hiking and biking to swimming or skiing is so important as we get older that practically every body system benefits as a result.
As many of us know, activity helps maintain flexibility in the physical tissues like muscles, bones, and joints. Frequent movement - tennis, walking, dancing or any other physical activity helps to maintain the inherent strength and integrity of the body structure and the muscles which hold it together. Freedom to move is one of the simplest feedoms we have and can be well maintained with proper repetitive activity. With lack of movement, the tissues and semi-liquid portions of your joints start to harden - both restricting mobility and causing pain. The only way to avoid this hardening is to keep exercising. Even your bones have flexibility related to the manner in which they consume nourishment and go through their natural building and rebuilding processes. Bone flexibility ensures fewer breaks related to impact and other unforeseen mishaps we may encounter in our daily lives.
A hardening of veins, arteries and lymph vessels (part of your immune system) restricts the ability of these systems to work properly. When your vessels harden you are more susceptible to internal pressure problems, scarring, clotting, and rupture all of which result in very serious and sometimes life threatening conditions. Again the flexibility of these tissues can be maintained with some form of cardio exercise.
It was classically thought that people could keep their mental acuity by doing “mental exercises” such as thinking games, reading, and puzzles. Thus far, there is no conclusive evidence that these activities actually maintain brain function. I’m not saying stop doing them - just because proof hasn’t been found yet doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist - but I am noting that the only result these activities have shown is better capability at solving thinking games, reading and puzzles. Cardio-vascular activity, however has actually been found to force the body to nourish the outer covering of nerves and nerve endings called the myaline sheath. In some extreme cases some studies have actually shown an increase in brain mass as a result of adhering to a new cardio routine. These results are not terribly conclusive, but even the possibility is encouraging.
Even your organs benefit from this heart pumping exercise. Cardio encourages your body to utilize oxygen and electrolytes which acts as the energy and nourishment for every one of your cells. Your liver, pancreas, stomach, lungs, intestines, and sex organs all benefit from continued activity in older age.
Hopefully I have convinced you that exercise - both cardio-vascular and strength - is extremely important as we grow older. The only question now is how much of each? Certainly it doesn’t make much sense to be doing more activity as we get older than we did when we were young and spry in our teens and early 20’s. Your body will slow down and natural processes will indeed make it more difficult to physically perform the way you did when your body was younger, but this means that to maintain some level of strength, balance and flexibility as we age, we must in fact put more effort into that maintenance. If you have the time, spend more time exercising when you are older than you did when you were young. Certainly not to the intensity you did when you were younger and don’t just jump right into it if you have been without exercise for a while, but your body will respond to exercise as you age the same as when it was younger - just more slowly. If you have the time to invest three or four hours a day of good physical activity whether that activity be in the gym, on the golf course, or anywhere else ... do it! Keeping your body active truly is the secret to everlasting life - at least everlasting capability and independence through a longer life.
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