The Fitness Wars Are Futile
By Paul RogersI’ve put up a permanent page called Fitness Wars because I thought it should be a little “sticky.” It discusses the very strange culture of strength trainers who seem to react to cardio and aerobics with a crucifix held at arms length.
It’s a very odd response to a very important component of health and fitness conditioning and wellbeing programming.
Anyway, I’ve explored some of the origins of this antagonism and I take a look at aerobic conditioning in this context.
Burn That Belly Fat With High-Intensity Training?
By Paul Rogers
Photo: Soldiersmediacenter. Jarad Bargas
A recent study by researchers at the University of Virginia found that high-intensity exercise training disposed of more belly fat in obese middle-aged women than lower-intensity training of the same energy expenditure.
The idea that doing high-intensity interval training burns off stubborn fat and visceral belly fat has been around for quite a few years. The premise has always lacked strong evidence in my opinion — or at least reasonable qualification. Any number of internet training and fat-loss gurus are promoting this idea.
What is High-Intensity Training?
First up, we need to get the concept straight. What exactly is the ’interval training’ or ‘high-intensity training’ or ’high-intensity interval training (HIIT)’ that we hear so much about?
Interval training is intermittent training, often near your maximum, in which you do a lap of an oval, or a spin on a bike, or 60 seconds on a treadmill very fast, then you recover, and do it again several times. That’s simple enough.
For example, I’m a masters sprinter and in training I might do 10 x 100 metres at 95% capacity, or 10 x 40 metres at 100% capacity. This is high-intensity interval training in real life. But I’ve been a marathoner and triathlete as well (don’t ask), and high-intensity training for those disciplines is mostly entirely different; say, 2km fast, 2km slow, 2km fast; or 6 x 400 metres at 90% capacity, or even, I might add, 5km at race pace, which is still high-intensity training, even if not interval training. And further, I know that if you run 40 to 60 miles a week in marathon or triathlon training you’ll burn fat . . . lots of it. So what’s this HIT stuff all about?
Early Investigations Were Not Adequate
One problem with some of the earlier studies was that they did not set a rule for what constitutes ‘high intensity’. The study I quoted above used lactate threshold to determine this, an excellent idea. And few earlier studies actually compared the different intensities for the same energy expenditure, which is what needs to be done to get a reasonable comparison.
You can’t just do 6 spins on a stationary bike for 30 seconds flat out and expect to burn the same amount of calories and fat as someone who does 30 minutes on the treadmill at 85% capacity, or even a 90-minute run at slow pace for that matter. Energy expenditure, which just about always includes some fat and glucose burning, is going to be a product of intensity X time for any physical activity.
In that event, the best approach for fat loss and fitness goals is likely to be a combination of interval training, weight training and cardio at different intensities. Big surprise eh? No, that’s right, it’s not. It almost reflects the recent exercise guidelines issued by the US government for general health and fitness.
Persistent Abdominal Fat and How to Shed It
What the study above suggests is that high-intensity training just might be superior to to lower-intensity training, for equal energy expended, in removing belly fat, especially the visceral fat wrapped around the internal organs that has been shown to increase your risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes. Naturally, you have to include a nutrition program with some calorie restriction as well.
Even though the study involved a small number of women, 27, it seemed to be well designed. And yet men might respond differently, as might the young or post-menopausal women. It’s an idea that has promise for designing exercise programs for the overweight and people with metabolic syndrome and diabetes and is well worth watching in the future. The main problem is one that is not going to be easily solved: that unfit, obese people are unlikely to take on high-intensity training by themselves and stick to it, despite what you see on The Biggest Loser.
Having said that, there is plenty of evidence that aerobic, cardio type programs help people lose fat in general — even some visceral fat — and aerobic exercise has additional benefits for cardiovascular protection. A combination of weights, cardio and HIT is likely to be the superior program if it can be tolerated.
The Best Type of High-Intensity Training for Obesity?
Heavy people exert quite a shock to the knees when they run long or hard. It’s a real injury concern. Running is often out of the question for obese people, let alone high-intensity running. For this reason, I favour cycle spin classes on a stationary bike. Doing this exercise in a group has advantages. The instructor will encourage hard work, but it’s possible to set your own pace by adjusting resistance and peddle cadence if you get overwhelmed. You’ll get some high-intensity work threaded with lower-intensity cardio — an excellent workout combo. A medical checkup is highly recommended for anyone moving from a sedentary lifestyle to high-intensity training.
Does Stretching Work for Injury Prevention or Performance?
By Paul RogersIf you’ve been involved in any sort of physical activity for fitness or sports, you probably know that ’stretching’ is highly recommended for the following reasons:
- Increase or maintain flexibility to prevent injury and increase mobility for day-to-day living
- Prevent injury during sports and exercise activity
- Increase performance in sport
- Offset muscle soreness after exercise
It seems to make sense doesn’t it? You feel that muscle let go and you think to yourself: “if only that muscle was a little more flexible, that would not have happened.”
The trouble is, much of the value of stretching got taken for granted over many decades and few scientific studies were undertaken to confirm what everyone assumed was correct: you must stretch.
Now, some of that scientific work on stretching has been done and it’s not quite as simple as logic would have us believe.
Maintain flexibility
To cut to the chase, stretching on a regular basis, perhaps daily, seems to be a good idea for everyone. Regular stretching probably has benefits for increased mobility, balance and injury prevention, especially as we age.
Prevent injury during exercise and sports
While regular stretching of various types may help athletes overall, stretching before or after an event or workout has mixed support for injury prevention, which I’m sure comes as a surprise to many. We all do it in some form because it makes us feel ready to compete. Benefits may be more psychological than physical. However, some recent review studies have been more positive, especially in relation to muscle-tendon injuries. Inadequate study design and confusion of the terms ’stretching’ and ‘warmup’ seems to have confounded much of the early science.
Enhance performance
Static stretching, it seems, may even impair performance in power sports like sprinting and jumping by interfering with optimum stretch-shortening cycle. It’s best not to confuse static stretching with warmups, in which dynamic stretching probably has a place.
On the other hand, some sports like gymnastics and dance require extreme flexibility and the same rules may not apply.
Overall, static, passive of PNF (proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation ) stretching close to your sport or activity — before or after — seems to have little going for it in relation to performance benefit.
Prevent muscle soreness
Soreness after an exercise session is called ‘delayed-onset muscle soreness’ or DOMS. Stretching before or after exercise has long been recommended as a way to reduce or prevent soreness. However, a review of studies in this area did not find any benefit from stretching for the prevention of muscle soreness. Warming up is something different and has more calculable benefits.
Summary of stretching
In summary, the best advice seems to be that we maintain a regular stretching program from day to day, warm up sufficiently before exercise and sport, including some dynamic stretches — leg swings, arm swings are a good example — then warm down with some further stretches, but don’t expect that either performance or muscle soreness will benefit from static stretching at exercise time.
I’m certain this will be debated for many years to come.
- Small K, Mc Naughton L, Matthews M. A systematic review into the efficacy of static stretching as part of a warm-up for the prevention of exercise-related injury. Res Sports Med. 2008 Jul-Sep;16(3):213-31.
- Hart L. Effect of stretching on sport injury risk: a review. Clin J Sport Med. 2005 Mar;15(2):113.
- Herbert RD, de Noronha M. Stretching to prevent or reduce muscle soreness after exercise. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2007 Oct 17;(4):CD004577. Review.
Food and Fitness Science Roundup
By Paul RogersFor this regular roundup, I try to find work that tells us something significant or new in the context of the field of study.
New Recommendations for Vitamin D Intake for Children from the American Academy of Pediatrics
A recommendation for a doubling of recommended dietary intake of an essential nutrient for any population sector is substantial news in nutrition science. The AAP list the reasons and the strategy here.
http://www.aap.org/pressroom/nce/nce08vitamind.htm
Coffee Drinking Does not Raise Mortality
Up to 6 cups a day and risks were still normal and even slightly lower than the consumers of much more moderate quantities. Adjustment of cardiovascular risk seems to be the difference — perhaps by lowering the risk of type 2 diabetes?
Ann Intern Med. 2008 Jun 17;148(12):904-14. The relationship of coffee consumption with mortality. Lopez-Garcia E, van Dam RM, Li TY, Rodriguez-Artalejo F, Hu FB.
Also see: Does Coffee Kill or Cure?
Red Wine Seems to Cut Risk of Lung Cancer
What? Not another reason to drink red wine! The authors do counsel against excessive consumption.
Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2008 Oct;17(10):2692-9. Alcoholic Beverage Intake and Risk of Lung Cancer: The California Men’s Health Study. Chao C, Slezak JM, Caan BJ, Quinn VP.
Vitamin C Interferes with Training Adaptation and Performance
I noticed the possibility of this a few years ago while researching the utility of antioxidants like vitamin C to benefit athletic performance. Vitamin C seemed to inhibit phosphofructokinase, which is an important enzyme in glycolysis (breakdown and use of glucose for energy). Considering that many athletes and fitness buffs seem to take vitamin C supplements, it may be worth noting. Moderate dietary intake is likely not a problem. We need more information on this one before the panic sets in.
Am J Clin Nutr. 2008 Jan;87(1):142-9. Oral administration of vitamin C decreases muscle mitochondrial biogenesis and hampers training-induced adaptations in endurance performance. Gomez-Cabrera MC, Domenech E, Romagnoli M, Arduini A, Borras C, Pallardo FV, Sastre J, Viña J.
Caffeine Plus Carbohydrate Increases Glycogen Storage
As far as I am aware, this is the first time this has been shown. About 500 mg caffeine is a lot of coffee though.
J Appl Physiol. 2008 Jul;105(1):7-13. High rates of muscle glycogen resynthesis after exhaustive exercise when carbohydrate is coingested with caffeine. Pedersen DJ, Lessard SJ, Coffey VG, Churchley EG, Wootton AM, Ng T, Watt MJ, Hawley JA.
New Glycemic Index and Load Tables
If you’re into the GI, you’ll need this. More on the GI in another article. I’m not a big fan.
Click through to here from the abstract and you can download the free tables.
Diabetes Care. 2008 Oct 3. International tables of glycemic index and glycemic load values: 2008. Atkinson FS, Foster-Powell K, Brand-Miller JC.
Check out the Food for Life, Fit for Life Training Program. Free download available.
Food for Life, Fit for Life - Lifestyle Training Course Released
Food for Life, Fit for Life - Prevent Diabetes, Heart Disease and Cancer is a set of training modules in lifestyle preventive health. It took me 12 months to write and it’s now available for licensing. You can download a free ebook version that describes the content. Here’s what’s included:
- Training and evaluation manual for course presenters
- 120 PowerPoint slides with notes and contemporary references
- Sample learner assessment questions for each module
- Fact sheets that can be used as handouts to clients/students
- Risk evaluation self-assessment handouts for nutrition, physical activity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer
- Case studies for workgroups and workshops
- Glossary of terms
- Regular newsletter
- US and UK/Australia versions (spelling and units)
- Evidence based information, fully referenced
- Flexible licence conditions and regular, free updates for one year
- Access to a membership web site for support, updates and extra resources.
Background
I started writing this over 12 months ago as a tool to use for talks to clients and groups in fitness and personal training. Rather than the limited training course I had in mind at that time, it has now morphed into something more like a training ‘environment’ with support tools like handout risk assessments and case study tasks. I have plans to add more of these tools and content within the context of the course. For example, a basic ’sports nutrition’ module is near completion.
As a trainer-presenter, your options are varied. You could select various slides or modules for presentations ranging from 2 hours to 2 days to groups or even individual clients. The target audience could include lay people or professionals in various support roles in preventive health. Presenters could include dietitians, nutritionists, fitness trainers, practice nurses, physios, diabetes educators and any support professionals working in preventive and lifestyle health. Some skill in delivering an appropriate language and idiom to audiences with variable knowledge bases would be required by the presenter.
I’ve summarised the essential elements of lifestyle disease, meaning the risks with which we burden ourselves because of our behaviour in relation to food, nutrition and physical activity. Although I mention the roles of environment and genetics, this is not the focus of the program at this time, but I do have plans to add modules that address basic issues in environmental safety in relation to food quality. Any additional modules added are included in the updates available in the licence for one year.
The core elements are:
- Type 2 Diabetes
- Cardiovascular disease
- Cancer
- Obesity
- Motivational and behavioural change
- Nutrition
- Physical activity and exercise
For example, I’ve summarised the complete content of the WCRF/AICR Expert Report: Food, Nutrition, Physical Activity and the Prevention of Cancer: a Global Perspective so that the essential points are clear.
Licences
At present, only one licence option is available. This locks the headers and footers and PowerPoint attributions to me and no changes are permissible. I will probably also offer a ‘professional licence’ under which the licensee has the right to modify the content and replace attribution and headers etc with their identity. This would allow the licensee, with some restrictions, to modify the content and to adjust any particular aspect that did not suit their purpose or premise.
Availability
I’ve created a free ebook (pdf) version of the course, featuring the PowerPoint slide headings with content from the notes of each slide. This delivers a summary version and illustrates the content quite successfully. Not everything is fleshed out of course.
The best way to get this is to fill out the email form on the front page of the web site — or on this blog at the top right. This will redirect to a download page after confirmation. You will then get an email advising when content is updated or added, including new web and blog articles. This would be no more frequent than once each week.
I hope you take a look at the free ebook and let me know what you think. Suggestions, comments and admonitions are, of course, welcome.
Low-Carb Diets Make You Dumber and Slower
By Paul Rogers
Photo courtesy Anosmia
Low-carb diets have had their share of weight loss success; and most of it can be attributed to dietary restriction of food choice. That’s how most restrictive diets work, from low-fat to low-carb and vegan: tell people they can’t eat something that’s clearly identifiable, and they will lose weight because choice is curtailed and they find it easier to eat fewer calories.
The trouble starts when they find they can’t maintain such a restrictive regimen — and then they get discouraged, guilty, and the relapse occurs.
But what if low-carb dieting helped you lose weight for the time being, but actually inhibited your personal performance in day-to-day living? Would you continue with it as a lifestyle choice?
What I’m about to discuss does not necessarily apply to moderately low-carb diets, but mostly to ketogenic diets, in which carbohydrate intake is usually less than 20 percent. Even so, there is a possibility that the effects apply across a continuum of low-carb eating from very low to low.
And those adverse effects? Low-carb makes you think slower and move slower.
Low Carb Makes You Dumber
In a study in 2007 in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, researchers compared the cognitive abilities of dieters on a low-carb, high-fat (LCHF) diet with another group of dieters on a high-carb, low-fat diet (HCLF) . Here is what they found:
However, the IT test score (a measure of the speed of visual information processing) was affected by diet composition. The results showed that participants consuming the LCHF had significantly less improvement in the minimum stimulus time required to make a correct response than did those consuming the HCLF diet . . . Our findings are consistent with those of an earlier study in obese women showing that performance of a complex, cognitively demanding task assessing mental flexibility was significantly worse after the consumption of a very-low-energy, low-carbohydrate, ketogenic diet than after the consumption of an isocaloric, nonketogenic diet with higher carbohydrate and lower fat content. Similarly, the treatment of young rats with a ketogenic LCHF diet for 1 month resulted in severe cognitive impairment, and a series of rat studies showed that the chronic ingestion of a high-fat diet, in particular a high-saturated-fat diet, can adversely affect cognitive performance.
Low Carb Makes You Slower
In a study in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association in 2007, a team of investigators measured the fatigue and perceived effort of one group of dieters on a ketogenic low-carb diet and another group on a diet with much higher quantities of carbohydrate. Here’s what they concluded:
These pilot data indicate that ketogenic, low-carbohydrate diets enhance fatigability and can reduce the desire to exercise in free-living individuals.
This is not surprising because athletes know that glucose (and phosphocreatine) supply energy at a rate that supports fast, high-powered activities, whereas fat and ketones can only supply energy at a rate biochemically rapid enough for mostly slower activities.
Evidence from the Paleolithic
Now, you might think that would be a good place to leave this discussion — the evidence is reasonably clear — but just for speculative fun, let’s take a look at our evolutionary pre-history and the diets of emerging Homo sapiens — modern humans — in the Paleolithic period of evolution.
About 800,000 years ago, primates moved out of Africa to the north and into Europe to colder climates. This early pre-human form was called Homo erectus, and this species probably evolved into Homo neanderthalis, the Neanderthals, while erectus lived on as a parallel species.
The curious thing is that a second migration of early humans north from Africa started about 50,000 years ago and spread throughout Europe and beyond. It seems that this smart new species, Homo sapiens or ‘intelligent human’, was much more intelligent than earlier species such as erectus and neanderthalis. As far as evolutionary science can establish, Homo sapiens swept all before it and replaced the Neanderthals and erectus with modern humans throughout the world. The other species were out-competed and did not survive.
Paleo Diets and the Evolution of Power and Intelligence
Enthusiasts of Paleo dieting like to contend that early humans were very healthy on a diet mostly of meat, vegetables and some fruit, but virtually no grains or tubers — that is, a low-carbohydrate diet. However, it’s pretty clear that early humans started to eat grains about 20,000 years ago, perhaps earlier, and, according to Richard Wrangham, Elizabeth Pennisi and others, probably ate tubers well before then. See Did Cooked Tubers Spur the Evolution of Big Brains?
Paleontologists have speculated as to why Homo sapiens so dominated the other species in Europe and beyond as they moved into their territory from 50,000 years ago.
Here’s where I speculate that the burgeoning consumption of carbohydrate foods in the form of tubers and grains in East Africa, the cradle of early humans, fed a growing brain that thrives on glucose. Glucose from carbohydrates supplied abundant energy substrate for the evolving brain to build those complex neural networks that we know provides the complex reasoning capabilities of modern humans.
Carbohydrate foods were abundant in the East African savannah. As Wrangham points out: “Today, there are 40,000 kilograms of tubers per square kilometer in Tanzania’s savanna woodlands.” The book The Lost Crops of Africa, documents the prolific grain resources in this region. It would be unlikely if the evolving Homo sapiens did not take advantage of these abundant food resources at some time.
The Neanderthals, by comparison, most likely had a more limited food supply, relying mostly on meat and some vegetables and fruits in season, and eggs but fewer carbohydrate resources, especially in the cold north.
I think it’s a fair bet that Homo sapiens, as they moved north out of Africa from 50,000 years ago, armed with complex brains fueled by rapidly accessible glucose from carbohydrate food resources, simply out-competed the slower moving and thinking Neanderthals and the remaining Homo erectus. Not only were modern humans smarter, they probably moved faster as well.
The thing is, we can still simulate the best qualities of the diets of our ancestors, which were most likely characterised by being low in saturated fat, high in plant foods and fibre, and with sufficient carbohydrate to keep us out of ketosis and to fuel the powerful movement and activity required for good health and fitness.
High carb. Simply smarter, faster.
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 86, No. 3, 580-587, 2007
J Am Diet Assoc. 2007 Oct;107(10):1792-6.
When Aerobic Fitness is Not Aerobic Conditioning
By Paul Rogers
Photo: Ernst Moeksis
Aerobic fitness is measured by the volume of oxygen you can process in any given time. This is called your VO2 maximum or VO2max. It’s mostly measured in millilitres of oxygen used per kilogram of bodyweight per minute.
An elite marathon runner might have a VO2 of 80 and an obese, sedentary and very unfit person of the same age around 35.
You mainly get very high VO2 by doing aerobic or cardio training for lengthy sessions, usually in one block; say, an hour or running, cycling or similar activity. But . . . you can also get a reasonably high VO2 — but not as high as a marathon runner — by doing higher intensity exercise for less time. This might involve sprints or middle distance intervals at high intensity, or even workouts like this one in the gym without running at all. Training for team sports can provide this sort of aerobic fitness. Typical VO2 in elite athletes in sports like football (soccer) might be around 60 to 65, with some individuals even higher.
Why You Need Cardio for Health
‘Cardio’ like walking or slow jogging on treadmills is often recommended in heart rehabilitation programs or for the very unfit in order to build up heart and lung fitness. This is much less stressful than doing higher intensity intervals for a shorter time. And regular, moderate-intensity, sustained aerobic exercise conditions other aspects of your body other than your ability to to get fitter faster, which is perceived as one benefit of interval training.
Aerobic conditioning of the longer, slower type builds the small blood vessels called ‘capillaries’, in muscles, — the heart is a muscle — and these are encouraged to grow throughout muscle tissue to facilitate oxygen supply at times of high demand. With this sort of conditioning, your heart has extra blood supply and it gets bigger and stronger as well. For example, in one study, two groups were trained, one doing continuous, cardio type exercise, and the other shorter intervals of higher intensity. The longer, slower cardio group added twice as much capillary capacity as the interval trainers.
This might even be important if you were unfortunate enough to suffer a heart attack. The extra blood supply, called ‘collateral supply’ could save your life.
You will get some of this capillary conditioning with interval training, but the big benefits mostly come from regular, sustained aerobic type exercise — jogging, running, cycling swimming for 30 minutes or more at a session. Naturally, the higher-intensity interval type exercise will improve your anaerobic performance if you need this for sports.
If you’re training for health and fitness, don’t put all of your eggs in the weight training and high-intensity interval training baskets. Find time to fit in some good, old-fashioned cardio.
Effect of interval versus continuous training on cardiorespiratory and mitochondrial functions: relationship to aerobic performance improvements in sedentary subjects. Daussin FN, Zoll J, Dufour SP, et al. Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol. 2008 Jul;295(1):R264-72. 2008
EPOC, Afterburn and Weight Loss - Does It Work?
By Paul RogersSoldiers in Iraq. Soldiersmediacenter. Jarad Bargas
When we exercise hard or long, or both, we use the body’s resources in certain ways in order to achieve this level of performance. Glycogen (glucose) in muscles and liver is used up, lactic acid builds up in muscles, muscle gets damaged and broken down for energy, other energy systems are exhausted. It’s a demolition job and repair is required when you finally stop exercising. Oxygen is the driver of this process, and without it being supplied at the level that can drive your intensity of effort, you slow down and even stop — exhausted. Yet oxygen is also the driver of the repair process.
Anaerobic exercise causes oxygen debt
The body has a way of enduring for a few minutes when it really has insufficient oxygen for your exercise needs. This is called anaerobic exercise. You know when this is happening because you start to get out of breath and slow dramatically. This can only go on for a few minutes at top effort.
However, after you stop, your body then tries to get everything back to normal. To do this, it uses oxygen in the repair and replenishment process and to repay the debt — more than it would normally if you had not exercised that day or for as hard or long. This increased oxygen use is called “excess post-exercise oxygen consumption” or EPOC. It’s sometimes called “afterburn”, which is not a bad way of thinking of it. Short term oxygen debt recovery happens just after you stop and until you get your breath back. Longer-term EPOC continues for several hours, perhaps more than 12 hours, until glycogen is restored, lactate is removed and muscle is repaired and replenished by amino acids.
How EPOC can help you
EPOC often gets discussed in terms of weight loss programs because the excess oxygen use stimulates metabolism and, theoretically, it’s good for weight loss, which is probably true, except it’s not all a bed of roses stimulating EPOC, and it’s not necessarily the best option.
The thing is, you have to work hard for the afterburn effect. You need to exercise at high intensity or for a longer time at moderate intensity. EPOC occurs when you degrade body systems and use resources. A brisk 30-minute stroll around the block with the dog or a leisurely chat and pump at the gym and a nice cup of coffee in between won’t do it either. You will read in various places how EPOC only comes from high intensity exercise. This is not necessarily true. There is likely a minimum amount of work to be done, but no one really knows what this is. It could just as easily result from moderate intensity cardio for a longer period of time. You can probably do it lifting weights, running sprints or running for an hour, but in the end, you have to work hard whatever you do.
EPOC versus energy consumed during exercise for weight loss
It’s no use doing lots of high-intensity intervals for 20 minutes, exhausting yourself, then expecting EPOC to make you thin like a cheetah after you stop. You also have to consider how much energy (calories) you expend during the exercise. While the interval training might be time efficient, you’re probably not going to burn the same calories during that exercise as the guy or gal that runs for an hour at 5 minutes/kilometre pace (8 minute/mile) pace. EPOC can’t make up for an imbalance of calories burnt during exercise.
The best exercise program for weight loss
Stop worrying about the afterburn. (As if you ever did.) Mix your training up with weights, aerobics, and sprint or interval training if you feel fit enough for it. Read more in my article: The Best Fat Loss Strategy That Really Works.
A 3-Day HIT Fitness Program for Busy People
By Paul Rogers
Fast cat from Polandeze
The American College of Sports Medicine physical activity guidelines include the following recommendations for general health and wellbeing:
- Moderately intense cardio 30 minutes a day, five days a week, OR,
- Vigorous intense cardio 20 minutes a day, 3 days a week, AND
- 8 to 10 strength-training exercises, eight to 12 repetitions of each exercise, twice a week.
Note that they recommend you can substitute 3 days a week of higher-intensity exercise for 5 days of moderate intensity — plus two weight training sessions in either case.
Just recently, as reported in Heartwire, a research group from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (Circulation July 7, 2008) showed that high-intensity exercise for 3 days a week for a total of 2 hours might produce better results in people with ‘metabolic syndrome’, a condition that is measured by excess weight around the waist, high blood triglycerides and low HDL cholesterol.
This is exactly how I train now after many years of running and gym for 5 days a week. It’s tougher, and it’s best to have some measure of fitness leading up to this, but it does save time. This is my program now: it’s pretty simple and I make adjustments to suit from time to time. Running is done at a local sports field. Weights are done at a fitness centre and gym. I always take at least one day break between sessions.
It’s a little more than what might be done for general health and fitness, but I train for various recreational sports as well.
- Day 1. Track:: 20 x 60m; 90-95% effort, explosive start; jog/walk back, 10-20 seconds rest, repeat, recover at number 10. Weights:: Same day, go straight to gym before cooldown, 10 exercises upper body — rows, curls, pulldowns, pullups, dips, abs, pushdowns, shoulder or bench press.
- Day 2. Full body workout and HIT at gym:: stiff-leg deadlifts, squats or leg press, calf raises, rows, dips, pulldowns, curls, abs, pushdowns, shoulder press, overhead press. Cardio HIT:: treadmill, 10 minutes continuous at 85%; mini-trampoline, two and one-legged high bounces, high-knee sprint intervals, 10 minutes.
- Day 3. Track:: 10 x sprint starts, sometimes with spikes, 40m, 100%, plenty of rest; form runs 80m x 10, 85%. Gym as for Day 1.
From that, you can get the general idea of a 3-day program even though it doesn’t have to be quite as intense or as long. The main point to note is that it needs to be at an intensity where you are sweating profusely and can hardly talk during the tough bits. You don’t have to be superfit to start like this, but it is wise to get a medical clearance. It is best to work up to it with a more gradual approach, one of the main problems being injury to the muscles, tendons, ligaments and joints.
10 Ways Exercise Prevents or Manages Diabetes
By Paul Rogers
Trials in the US, Finland and China have shown that moderate weight loss combined with an exercise program can ward off impending type 2 diabetes by getting blood glucose (sugar) under control and generally improving markers for this disease of glucose, fat and insulin metabolism. Diagnosed diabetics also benefit from regular exercise in a similar way.
Here’s how exercise helps:
- Physical activity helps you manage weight. You need to include a sensible eating program, but weight loss improves your ability to process glucose and ward off diabetes.
- Exercise uses glucose stored in muscle and, over time and with increased fitness, enhances the amount of glucose you can store, lowering blood glucose in the process.
- Weight training uses muscle glucose more than fat, as does other high-intensity exercise. Regular sessions of weight lifting lower your blood glucose and open up the “gates” for glucose transport.
- Weight training also builds more muscle. More muscle provides additional storage capacity for glucose.
- Glucose transport to muscle during exercise does not require insulin. In fact, insulin goes quiet during exercise in people with normal metabolism and not injecting insulin.
- Physical activity enhances insulin sensitivity even when you’re not exercising. Insulin sensitivity is the ability of insulin to store glucose.
- Day to day, exercise gives you improved glucose storage when you’re exercising, and improved glucose storage when you’re not. You get a synergy of effect when you exercise.
- Cardiovascular fitness is a result of aerobic conditioning. Cardio type exercise is best for this. Heart and lung fitness is associated with protection against diabetes and heart disease. The fitter you are, the better your chances — even allowing for some excess weight.
- Faulty fat metabolism and high levels of fat (triglycerides) in the blood raise your chances of getting diabetes. Exercise of any sort can help normalize blood fat levels. Look to be under 150 mg/dL or 1.69 mmol/L. When you’re really fit and healthy and have low overall body fat, this number will be closer to 100 mg/dL (1.1 mmol/L). You should aim for this.
- Regular exercise, especially higher-intensity exercise, increases your metabolism when you’re not exercising. This not only helps lower blood fats and glucose, it helps you reach and maintain normal weight.
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