physical activity •

Americans follow simple, short and solo exercise habits

September 24, 2013 By Janet Vasquez Leave a Comment

The trend of exercise keeps on changing with the changing lifestyle of countries. Be it aerobics, dance, interval training, weight machines, medicine balls and Pilates falls all keep on coming and going with the fashion trends. But when it comes to exercise habits, Americans say they prefer to stick to what’s simple, solo and short.

A recent online survey of nearly 75 percent of 1,200 adults, aged 24 to 44, about exercise habits, says the participants worked out at least once a week and 77 percent prefer to do it alone.

Americans like everything simple, short and minimal when it comes to physical activity. Running was the most popular type of exercise followed by lifting weights and biking/hiking/outdoor activities, according to the survey by the watch company Timex.

“If it’s true, it’s good news for the fitness industry,” said Dr. Walter Thompson, who studies exercise trends for the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM).

Thompson said the survey probably provides a “useful snapshot” into the behaviors of the responding age group. “Outside that group,” he said, “it’s a little dangerous.”

Some 29 percent of those surveyed said they spend between 30 minutes and one hour on their physical activities and 18 percent claim between one and two hours.

61 percent of people questioned in the poll said they don’t exercise in a gym, and the average American is no early bird.

Only 27 percent said they found time to get in a workout during the work day.

Way to healthy lifestyle is just 30 minutes of exercise

September 19, 2013 By Janet Vasquez Leave a Comment

Every health expert suggests you to engage in exercise. But we often wonder how much hours of exercise will suffice our requirement.

A new study suggests, exercising for 30 minutes on a daily basis can boost energy and encourages people to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Researchers at the University of Copenhagen explain why moderate exercising is more motivating than hard training.

The obesity epidemic has massive socio-economic consequences, and decades of health campaigns have not made significant headway, reports Science Daily.

Researchers at the University of Copenhagen are pursuing the development of a new integrative methods for preventing and treating this widespread problem.

“Obesity is a complex social problem requiring a multidisciplinary approach. In a new scientific article we combine data from biomedical studies of the subjects’ bodies with ethnological data on their experiences during the 13-week trial period. This enables us to explain the background for the surprising fact that 30 minutes of daily exercise is just as beneficial as a full hour of hard fitness training,” says Professor Bente Stallknecht from the Department of Biomedical Sciences at University of Copenhagen.

The findings have been published in Scandinavian Journal of Public Health.

Once a week exercise enough for elderly women: Study

September 7, 2013 By Janet Vasquez Leave a Comment

Here is a good news for elderly women who hate doing excercises daily. A new study says, women over the age of 60 may need to exercise only once a week to significantly improve their strength and endurance.

Greater frequency, intensity and duration of exercise is beneficial in young people. This study suggests the things that necessarily apply to younger adults are not valid for women over the age of 60 as far as health and fitness are concerned.

Study

Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham carried study on 63 elderly women performing combined aerobic exercise training (AET) and resistance exercise training (RET) for 16 weeks.

One group performed AET and RET one time per week, a second group two times per week and a third group three times per week.

At the beginning of the study, each participant completed a 4km-per-hour walk test to determine heart rate and oxygen consumption during the task. The average heart rate was 110 beats-per-minute.

After 16 weeks of AET and RET training, the women’s heart rates averaged 92 beats-per-minute during the walk, indicating that the women required much less effort to do the same daily task following the exercise programme.

Findings

The researchers found significant increases in muscular strength, cardiovascular fitness and functional tasks in each group, but there were no significant differences in outcomes among groups.

“This study demonstrates that doing as little as one AET and one RET workout each week can provide a lot of benefit for older women’s overall quality of life and health,” said Gordon Fisher, primary investigator of the study.

Fisher said the study goes against the common belief about exercise – that more is better.

The study was published in The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research.

Keep obesity, weight gain at bay with intense physical activity

September 4, 2013 By Janet Vasquez Leave a Comment

Obesity is the root cause of many lifestyle diseases that are leading to preventable deaths in US. In the past four decades, obesity rates in the US have soared, and kids ages six to 11 have been hit the hardest. But here is a good news for people who loathe exercises.

Researchers say, for weight loss the intensity of the physical activity matters more than the duration you have engaged into it.

According to a study, excess weight gains can be easily controlled by brief episodes of intense physical activity. Researchers claimed that higher-intensity activity was linked to lower risk of obesity even if the duration was less than 10 minutes.

“What we learned is that for preventing weight gain, the intensity of the activity matters more than duration,” said Dr. Jessie X. Fan, professor of family and consumer studies at the University of Utah and the study leader.”Knowing that even short bouts of brisk activity can add up to a positive effect is an encouraging message for promoting better health.”

What the researchers recommend?

The experts recommend that the Americans should engage in minimum of 150 minutes of Moderate to Vigorous Physical Activity (MVPA) per week. This can be achieved in eight to 10 minute periods.

Researchers recommend people to prefer the stairs instead of an elevator, parking on the other side of a parking lot, and walking to the store for household tasks and odd jobs can help people lose weight.

Study

The researchers carried a study on 2,202 women and 2,309 men who participated in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) between 2003 and 2006. At the time, the participants wore accelerometers over seven days to measure their physical activity.
Researchers analyzed the exercise based on the intensity and duration of each session. Participants were divided into four groups – exercising in high intensity bouts for greater or less than 10 minutes and low-intensity bouts greater or less than 10 minutes.

Among the women, those who were involved in high-intensity, short bouts of exercise showed a decrease of .07 Body Mass Index (BMI). Similar results were found in men too.

Researchers also found that if women engaged in high intensity exercise every minute, they lowered the chances of obesity by 5 percent. On the other hand, men involved in similar activity decreased the odds of obesity by 2 percent.

The study was published this week in the American Journal of Health Promotion.

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