One in every eight adult Americans belongs to a health club. The majority of those club members assume their health and fitness club knows a good deal about health and fitness. But the truth is most health clubs don't.
Most health club programs are based on marketing science — not fitness or health science. There's a lack of evidence that their fitness and health programs actually live up to what they claim to achieve.
Part of the problem is that fitness, health and fitness certification are very big business. There are more than 17,000 health clubs in the U.S. today. Fitness certification is not regulated, and the evidence is strong that certification is primarily geared toward making money for those doing the certification — not toward training trainers in valid and reliable fitness and health science.
What are some of the facts about fitness and health that we can trust? There's no doubt that a sedentary lifestyle can leave us at risk for one or another chronic illness and a shortened life expectancy. We know exercise helps reduce stress. It's safe to say a fit and active way of life can protect us against illness, and thus keep us alive longer.
The question is just what exactly is fitness? And beyond that, just what do we do, for how long and at what intensity to get and stay fit?
In his research, Dr. Steve Blair of the Cooper Institute in Texas found that people can gain the most health benefits not from strenuous workouts, but from mild exercise. For example, there are few health gains to be made by doing much more than walking briskly for 30 minutes five or more days a week. We can break things up and walk for two, 15-minute periods or three, 10-minute periods. And we can substitute biking or swimming for walking. The key is frequency and regularity. We have to do it often to reap the health benefits from mild exercise.
The positive health claims associated with weight training, like those associated with intense physical workouts, can be overstated and oversold. Lifting weights does help maintain muscle mass as we age, but research has shown that claims that weight training improves our metabolism or prevents osteoporosis are not based on solid evidence.
Most important to long-term fitness is musculoskeletal alignment. Our joints, muscles and bones need to be properly aligned if we are to avoid getting into trouble as we age. Lifting weights and doing cardio exercise in the wrong postural alignment can cause serious problems, problems that often don't show up for years. If we want to maintain our independence in later life — moving around without pain or restriction and walking without a cane or without our grandchildren pulling us in a cart, we need to train for musculoskeletal alignment and flexibility and then practice it regularly, not just when we're in the gym.
We tend to think that fitness means "body-side" fitness only. But thanks to medical and mind-body science, we now know better. The mind and body are an interdependent unit and, as the ancient Greek Olympians knew well, true fitness is a "sound mind in a healthy body." Our rapidly growing scientific knowledge of how important the mind is to the health of the body has not entered into the public arena yet.
The "mind-side" of fitness is a kind of critically important inner fitness. If we're riddled with insecurity and worry and if we're plagued by self-doubt, confusion and uncertainty, then we're more prone to high levels of stress, unhappiness and illness. And research has shown that a high stress level is more dangerous to our health than not being physically fit.
To be truly fit we need to develop strength, stamina and flexibility in mind as well as body. We need to address more than our waist and muscle size — we need to focus on what really matters in life. We need to consider the answer to questions such as, am I living deeply, is my life an adventure that moves me or like a movie someone else seems to have written, and have I discovered what I truly want and love or am I just doing what I feel I should or must.
These concerns will be included in the next generation of fitness and health programs that are based on reliable knowledge about what it means to develop and train for a sound mind in a healthy body.
source: newburyportnews
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