Simple but unknown: Why should we exercise?

Simple but unknown: Why should we exercise?

In some of my previous articles I have mentioned hamstring injury and exercise in old age. Providing reasons why exercise is crucially important for the aforementioned populations who are at risk. But you may be thinking I am a perfectly fit adult with no need to go to the gym. Well hear me out, as there are some quite startling facts that a lack of exercise can cause without you realising the effects.

Firstly low levels of cardiorespiratory endurance, which is the ability of the circulatory and respiratory systems to deliver oxygen to the muscles during sustained physical exercise, are linked with increased mortality. Not only this it increases the chance of other diseases such as obesity, hypertension (high blood pressure), diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

So lack of exercise clearly is negative for the body for just an ordinary adult, but is there any good news? Well simply put YES! In fact just a small increase in our cardiorespiratory endurance by 1 MET (metabolic equivalent is a unit of measurement for cardiorespiratory endurance) can reduce all cause mortality and Cardiovascular disease mortality by 10-20% depending on the different studies you read. So it for the everyday adult putting in exercise to improve our health and well being can be really important for our quality of life and reduce the chance of disease.

Now I am afraid a little bit more bad news. A staggering 80% of the UK population do not complete 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise as recommended by the department of health. Just have a little estimate in your head of how much time you complete and see if you are hitting that 150-minute target. If not aim for it, and if you are well done but try to increase it! However understandably there is a little thing called life that just gets in the way of everything we want to do. In fact a lack of time is the most commonly cited barrier to taking part in exercise. Second to time it’s a lack of motivation.

Okay so back to the good news. There are new methods of exercise that combat boredom and lack of time. It’s called high intensity interval training. In its simplest form you can do 10×1 minute intervals of hard work on a bike interspersed with 1 minute rest between each interval. This combats the lack of time as it takes 25minutes including a small warm up and cool down. I think 25 minutes out of your day is worthwhile to improve your cardiorespiratory fitness. Alternativly for something a little bit more fun there are numerous bits of equipment in the gym such as; rope, hurdles, sprints, hammer, medicine balls and the sled just to name a few that can be put together to make a fun high intensity interval circuit. Maximising your time in the gym and having the best results for your fitness.

Thanks for reading and hope you enjoyed it! See you in the gym!

Matthew Fish