If you are like many of us – own a gym membership but usually don’t have either time or desire to use it, this page is for you. We want to save you money and time by suggesting a totally different approach to health related fitness with many benefits to health and longevity.
Many of us are not too excited about going to a gym for benefits of aerobic or stretching exercises. The only question – are these really our best health related fitness and specifically as exercise for seniors options?
If you are concerned about your weight, weight loss foods and fitness effect on your health, then you should take a few minutes and focus on what we are trying to tell you here. This scientifically justified and proven information can dramatically change your views on health related fitness and its role in your life.
By the end of this page you should see that our usual understanding of fitness based on endurance training, and its benefits for our cardiovascular and general health is mostly wrong.
Please try to ignore for a few minutes what most mainstream doctors and our government are usually telling us about our health related fitness.
Current health related fitness statistics
First we want you to think about sad statistics on elite athletes, which many of us are not aware of. Only some of us already know broken health stories of their lives.
This sort of health deterioration statistics were collected on more than 30 years long European study of athletes specializing on demanding endurance sports. Cross-country marathon skiers and statistics of them developing heart disease was the primary subject of this study.
An Italian study of more than 30,000 athletes, published in the British Medical Journal in 2008 discovered that endurance athletes are at unusually high risk for atrial fibrillation (AF), which eventually leads to stroke.
This AF condition is categorized by the two upper chambers of the heart not properly beating, so blood is not being pumped completely out leading to clots. If a clot breaks loose, it can travel to the brain and cause a stroke.
According to general health statistics only 0.5% of the general population develops AF. Among the marathon skiers, it shows 12.8%. The most surprising was that the youngest age group had most of the risk. In the 26- to 33-year-old age group of marathon skiers 18.2% developed AF.
The worst news is that we can have AF and not even know that. Some of the symptoms include:
Another study of athletes performed by researchers at the Heart Center of the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) collected data showing that two in every 100,000 young athletes succumb to sudden cardiac death.
A few years ago, Harvard researchers published the Harvard Health Professionals Study. After studying over 7,000 people they found that the key to preventing heart disease is intensity – INSTEAD OF long-duration exercise.
In another Harvard study, intensity turned out to be the key to longevity and reduced risk of death. This study reinforces that long-distance runners have a higher risk of sudden cardiac death than other athletes.
These Harvard studies came to the same conclusion. Short bursts of intense exertions lower the risk of a heart disease – and death. This is an easier way to protect against AF and strengthen our hearts, if applied to our fitness plan.
This logic is much easier to relate to burst running for a short time during hunting or escaping wild animals. These short runs were usually replaced with periods of relaxation, till the new wild animal was spotted or merely required to satisfy our ancestors’ need for food.
Forcing ourselves to exercise for long periods without rest is not what nature intended and shouldn't be a part of our approach to health related fitness.
When we do the same repetitive movement over and over like a machine, we cause too much stress on our organs and free radicals generation by them. They cause inflammation leading to chronic and autoimmune diseases with a heart disease being one of them.
So, what is the solution?
This new approach to health related fitness is very simple and can be adapted by everyone of us within minutes and not leaving our homes.
1. Choosing our own starting point. This health related fitness program should work for everybody. You can be absolutely healthy with no signs of a heart disease, no weight or other issues. Or you can be a pregnant mother-to-be in a month or so, or dramatically overweight person with any number of heart or other diseases. Or you can be anything in between.
We can start even with 45 seconds walking once a day or whatever other starting challenge you choose. You can use weights or a bicycle, or anything else. All depends on your current general health condition.
BUT! We need to start somewhere...!
2. Always start with warming your muscles up not to damage them. Start slow and controlling your movements for about 2 minutes.
3. Challenge your body. Once you are warmed up and ready, turn up the intensity. Whatever form of exercise you choose, start at a level you’re comfortable with and put an intense effort into what you do. Start with only a minute or two.
4. Rest and recover. Now you need to relax and notice your heartbeat. Keep track of how long it takes to get back to normal. Take as long as you need, but when you catch your breath, it’s time to challenge your body again.
5. Repeat. Repeat the challenge followed by rest four to six times a day. This shouldn’t take more than 10-12 minutes for entire daily session.
Those who followed the basics of this program – short bursts of intensity, followed by short periods of rest – dramatically lowered their risk of heart disease. But that's not all -
* they lost weight * noticed a leaner and better toned body * increased lung capacity and * noticed many other health improvements.
Most of best holistic doctors whose advice we are following are suggesting using developed by Dr. Al Sears PACE program while talking about the death or traditional exercising and aerobics.
If above explanation left you with questions, please use our Contact Us Page/Form or follow PACE: Rediscover Your Native Fitness link for the Dr. Al Sears’s book under the same PACE name.
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link for the Dr. Al Sears’s book under the same PACE name.