It's difficult to imagine that something as benign as sitting can cause disease. But that is exactly what numerous research studies have found.
A report from the Mayo Clinic states: "Research has linked sitting for long periods of time with a number of health concerns, including obesity, increased blood pressure, high blood sugar, excess body fat around the waist and abnormal cholesterol levels. Too much sitting also seems to increase the risk of death from cardiovascular disease and cancer."
Another post in the Harvard University health blog reported on a recently published article in the Annals of Internal Medicine. This study reviewed 47 independent studies on the health effects of a sedentary lifestyle, and prolonged sitting specifically as a health risk. They summarized the information as follows.
" Over the course of these studies, people who sat for prolonged periods of time had a higher risk of dying from all causes - even those who exercised regularly. The negative effects were even more pronounced in people who did little or no exercise."
They go on to state "The current study documented higher rates of type 2 diabetes, cancer, and cancer-related deaths in very sedentary people. An unrelated study has linked more sitting and less activity with an increased risk of developing dementia."
Humans were designed to be physically active. They had to be to survive. They were constantly hunting, building, fighting, or running to avoid predators. They were physically active from the moment they woke up until they crawled into the cave to go to sleep. As we have evolved over the ensuing millennia, we have constantly developed more ways to make our physical lives easier and less active. With the emergence of agriculture, mass production, and mechanized conveniences, life became largely sedentary. Now we move from couch to the car, the office chair to the cafe. If we want to enjoy a long and vital life, it's time to get busy.
Exercise is considered one of the most fundamentally important aspects of health. Life is motion and without motion nothing functions. Therefore, it is important to explore the level of motion a patient presents with. Exercise and the movement of the skeletal muscles is required for:
- Venous blood return
- Peristalsis of the bowel
- Oxygenation of the blood
- Detoxification and purification of skin pores
- Immune modulating
- Digestive system regulating
- Required for bone health and remodeling
- Excretion of waste
Recommendations
Exercise is dependent on the ability of the presenting patient and therefore must be personalized to fit individual needs and preferences. Most importantly, the particular type of exercise must elicit positive emotions and the participant needs to believe that the activity is beneficial. However, some important guidelines for a coach to follow are:
- The exercise should not be strenuous enough that the patient does not feel refreshed after finishing
- Avoid exercise that increases large amounts of lactic acid as this is acidifying and can have a negative impact on general health.
- Exercise is both a medical and spiritual treatment. Therefore it is important to find out exactly what type of exercise will fulfill both purposes on an individualistic basis
- Exercise that activates the lymphatic system can be extremely effective in activating detoxification and increasing energy. A rebounder is therefore often considered (if physically able to) a mandatory part of a patient’s exercise regime
Patients that present with a debilitated physical state can have issues performing exercise. Swimming and yoga are often two non-strenuous exercises that show to have extremely positive health results.
Is there a best time to exercise?
The best time of the day to exercise is in the morning. If you remember from the Adrenal hormones curve, cortisol spikes in the morning and then gradually declines throughout the day. It is lowest in the evening, thus allowing the body to calm down to go to sleep.
“It is best to try to synchronize our activities with the natural rhythms of the body.”
Many people exercise late in the day after work. This can be a bad idea as it revs up the cortisol again just when it is supposed to be declining. Elevated cortisol will again pose problems with sleep and weight loss.
Questions a coach could could ask to find out the clients relationship to exercise:
- What are your early memories of physical education, sports and exercise?
- What is your relationship in general to exercise?
- What do you like about exercise, what don't you like about exercise?
- What type of movements bring you joy?
- How do you feel after exercise? Better than before or worse?
- Do you sustain an exercise program? What challenges do you encounter to stick with a program/exercise regime?
- Do prefer to exercise alone, or would prefer to have a buddy?
- Would you like to explore group classes?
- Do you become bored with the same exercise and therefore need a variety of different activities?
- Do you want to spend money on equipment?
Core and Resistance Training
Many benefits come from improving core strength including improved posture, better balance, reduced back pain and easier breathing. Core muscles are found as abdominal muscles, pelvic muscles, hip muscles, mid and lower back muscles. All of these muscles work together to support our spine and skull. We draw upon our core strength whenever we walk, sit, exercise or perform pretty much any activity. Many of our body’s movements originate from our core, working toward improving its strength will enhance our posture, spinal alignment, stability and more. Researchers continue to study the various ways core strength improves health and well-being. Here are a few of the proven benefits of having a strong center.
- Alleviates back pain: Research shows that people with weak core muscles have an increased risk of back ache and injury, since they lack adequate spine support. Core-strengthening exercises and core-engaging workouts, like yoga and Pilates, can help reduce discomfort, improve mobility and improve support for the spine in people with both acute and chronic pain.
- Improves Posture: Core-strengthening exercises work all of the muscles of the torso from top to bottom and front to back, helping us stand tall with our limbs in alignment. By improving posture we decrease the risk of disc herniation and vertebrae degeneration. Another benefit to better posture? Better breathing. That same balance that helps us stand up straight also opens our airway, making inhalations and exhalations easier.
- Improved Balance: Poor balance is a complicated condition, but lower body weakness, vestibular dysfunction and neurological deficits are often contributing factors. Studies have shown that dynamic balance improves as core strength increases.
Yoga, Pilates, swimming, cycling, kick boxing, fitness ball exercises, ... and countless other exercises help to strengthen core muscles.
Yoga
There are three main structures of yoga; yoga exercise, breathing and meditation. The ancient yogis believed that being in harmony with oneself and the environment through the integration of body, mind and spirit helped them achieve and maintain balance in their life.
There is a strong mind and body connection which, when harmonized, can result in mental and physical benefits.
Areas where different yoga exercises or asana are extremely effective:
- Increasing overall flexibility
- Increasing lubrication of joints, ligaments and tendons
- Massaging all organs of the body. Yoga is the only activity that massages all of the internal glands and organs of the body
- Complete detoxification. The stretching of muscles and joints and the massaging of the internal organs ensures optimal blood supply to all cells. This helps in flushing out toxins
- Excellent toning of the muscles
- Helps to release stress
- Makes the body-mind connection.
- Yoga can be easily practiced at home or at one of the many yoga centers around the world.
Lymphatic exercise
A mini trampoline is a very effective tool. Bouncing on a mini trampoline benefits lymphatic circulation by stimulating the millions of one-way valves in the lymphatic system. Through the gravitational pull, toxins get squeezed out of the 60 trillion estimated cells our body consists of. The short weightlessness in the air promotes the movements of nutrients into the cells. This whole process is like exercising every cell in the body.
The lymphatic system is the rubbish bin of the body. Lymphatic vessels are located all over the body but they are more concentrated in certain areas, like the breasts. Therefore, women should obtain a mini trampoline and conduct daily bouncing sessions, especially if they have breast cancer.
NASA says bouncing is as much as 68% more efficient than jogging on a treadmill. Therefore, bouncing only 3-5 minutes twice a day will advance both men and women from a category 1 fitness level to category 2 or 3, as long as one of those minutes consists of aerobic bounces as vigorously as possible.
This enhances the body's immune capacity for fighting current disease, destroying cancer cells, eliminating antigens and preventing future illness.
High Intensity Interval Training
High-intensity interval training (HIIT), also called high-intensity intermittent exercise (HIIE) or sprint interval training (SIT). It is a cardiovascular exercise strategy used to increase heart rate, alternating short periods of intense anaerobic exercise with less intense recovery periods. HIIT is the concept where one performs a short burst of high-intensity exercise followed by a brief low-intensity activity, repeatedly, until exhaustion. There is no universal session duration for HIIT however; typically these workouts last around 30mins or less. HIIT exercise sessions generally consist of a warm up, then multiple repetitions of high-intensity exercise separated by medium intensity exercise and then a cool down. The high-intensity exercise is done at maximum intensity and the medium exercise should be roughly 50% intensity.
What does HIIT improve?
- aerobic and anaerobic fitness
- blood pressure
- cardiovascular health
- insulin sensitivity (which helps the exercising muscles more readily use glucose for fuel to make energy)
- cholesterol profiles
- abdominal fat and body weight while
- maintaining muscle mass
HIIT can have a ratio of 1:1 which might be a 3-minute high intensity training followed by a 3-minute low intensity. These 1:1 interval trainings often last about 3, 4, or 5 minutes followed by an equal time in recovery. There is also the spring interval training method. With this type of program the exerciser does about 30 seconds of sprint or full-on effort, which is followed by roughly 4 minutes of recovery. This combination of exercise can be repeated 3 to 5 times.