Three Types Of Exercise For Health and Vitality

Dr. Walter Willett, the lead nutrition researcher on the Harvard Nurse’s Health Care Study, has a new food pyramid in his book, Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy.  The base of his pyramid is EXERCISE (rather than carbohydrates, the base of the USDA food pyramid).  We need three types of exercise for optimal health: aerobic exercise, strength training, and stretching.  In brief:

1. Aerobic exercise works the cardiovascular system (lungs, blood vessels, heart muscle) and increases the efficiency of aerobic muscle fiber.  It helps lower blood pressure, oxygenates the whole body, including the brain, uses calories, and helps prevent cardiovascular disease.

2. Strength building exercise works on the muscle fibers, bones, and cartilage and builds anaerobic muscle fiber.  It increases the metabolic rate, increases vitality, increases efficient glucose utilization for diabetes prevention, increases bone density, prevents arthritis, improves balance and reverses declining strength that comes from inactivity.

3. Stretching targets the structure by increasing flexibility, coordination, balance, agility, and improving all kinds of movement.  Avoiding stretching causes muscles to shorten and joint tissue to weaken, causing stiffness with aging.  Stretching improves arthritis pain and helps prevent injuries.

My advice for exercise success: compare yourself only with what you were able to do in the past, never with others.  Develop an individualized program for you and your body.  Set short term, attainable goals.  Err on the side of slow improvement rather than moving too quickly.  Be gentle.  Be patient.  Let your body enjoy movement by not forcing it to do too much too fast.  You want to build a new habit for life, and there is no hurry to reach goals.  You don’t even know what your goals are until you get going.  For example, you might have some goal body weight, but you’ll find that as you are learning what makes your body feel healthy and strong, those number goals aren’t so important.  My goal is to help you feel vital, happy, and at home in your body.  Then those other goals will take care of themselves.  Accept wherever you are today and begin. 

Aerobic Training: Goal of 3-4 sessions per week

• Improves the health of your heart and lungs

• Decreases blood pressure

• Decreases risk of diabetes, cancer, and obesity

• Improves your oxygen delivery system and increases your vitality

• Improves your moods, lifts depression, and improves sleep

• Helps with weight loss by consuming calories and taming the appetite

• Improves bone and cartilage health to some extent, if the exercise is weight bearing

• Reduces stress

• Improves your self-esteem and sense of psychological balance

Strength Training: goal of two 30-60 minute sessions a week

• Improves your muscle power and prevents you from becoming frail as you age

• Helps you do the tasks of daily life like getting out of a bathtub or carrying a bag of groceries

• Increases your metabolism and vitality

• Firms and tightens your body

• Increases your bone density

• Improves your balance

• Improves arthritis by supporting your joints

• Reduces stress

• Improves your self-esteem and sense of psychological balance

Flexibility: goal of a few minutes stretching every day

• Helps your joints function smoothly and without pain

• Improves balance

• Gives you freedom of movement (look at people who are older and see how stiff they become)

• Helps you with daily tasks like parking a car where you have to rotate your head

• Reduces stress and tension

  © 2003 Elaine Mansfield