MOVE!

“Getting half an hour of moderate to vigorous exercise five times a week cuts your risk of dying from all causes in half.” [Did you hear that? HALF!]

“…in a series of studies stretching back over a decade, Williams [Paul] has found that the risk of everything from big killers like diabetes, stroke, and heart attack to less common conditions like glaucoma, cataracts, and macular degeneration can be reduced by as much as 70 percent by going beyond the standard exercise guidelines.” [Now, did you also hear THAT? Physical ailments… reduced with exercise… by 70%!]

Ok, so do I have your attention yet?!

Before I go into those quotes and where they are from, I want to go back a bit… I love bookstores. The old-fashioned kind where you can actually still touch paper and turn pages with two fingers instead of one. Don’t get me wrong, I also love iPads and technology, but to me, there’s nothing like the security of holding a real book, where if you dropped it, you wouldn’t have to spend $500 on a new one. But I digress…

At the bookstore, I kept going back to a certain paperback called “Which Comes First, Cardio or Weights?”   Alex Hutchinson, Ph.D. is the author, and literally, within FIVE pages, I was hooked! It’s a book about “Fitness Myths, Training Truths, and Other Surprising Discoveries from the Science of Exercise.”

Dr. Hutchinson goes right for the Jugular. He explains many things like those two quotes that I began this post with. As a response to the age old workout question – which type of exercise should you do first (also the title of this book) he says “…you can’t have it both ways: the switch is set either to “bigger muscles” or to “better endurance,” and the body can’t instantly change from one setting to the other. How you start your workout determines which way the switch will be set for the session.”

There are MANY tips on exercise and training in this book. So many, in fact, that I’ll have plenty of material for upcoming blog posts. I’m only trying to whet your appetite, but the idea I will leave you with in Hutchinson’s book is that nearly all experts agree on two things about exercise:

1. Every bit of exercise helps, even in scraps as short as 10 minutes.
2. More is almost always better.

But don’t go anywhere just yet though! I have one more thing to share with you today.

At the same time as finding the book above, I also happened upon an mp3 book called “Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain” by John J. Ratey, which I expected to be really drawn out technical references to the hippocampus, BPMF and synapses and the like… and I wasn’t wrong – it WAS full of those! But I have to admit there was A LOT of great information that even a down-to-earth guy, like myself, could get from it. 

For instance, where Hutchinson’s book was mostly about the physical aspects and benefits of exercise, Ratey’s book is about the mental benefits of exercise.

He says that there was a study and that “30 minutes of treadmill running significantly reduces panic attacks as compared with quiet rest, by a ratio of 2:1. It’s affect can be immediate in some cases.” [If you are not on the exercise bandwagon by this point in the post, you are really not listening!]

Ratey talks about many more benefits of exercise, like how it can be used to treat Neurological, Psychological problems as well as helping depression and anxiety. He says that for anxiety, exercise distracts the mind, reduces muscle tension, builds brain resources and teaches the mind a different outcome, because some similar feelings that result from exercise (increased heartbeat…) are similar to those of anxiety – but it is something positive. Exercise re-routes the brain’s circuits, improves mind resilience and sets one free from feeling trapped or immobilized.

Both books are well worth the information in them. If you learn one thing from me here today, it should be to MOVE! So, put on those new shoes of yours and get moving a bit!

In the spirit of moving, I’m linking to a very cool, short video, aptly named “Move”, by Rick Mereki. So go check it out!

–Yours in fun fitness, Mike