Discussions regarding what you need to do in order to become or remain fit are often humorous because they are so different from many other conversations regarding other aspects of wellness. Most of those other discussions center on “what is too much?” For example, too many calories. Too many saturated fats. Too much stress. With exercise, though, the conversation often reverses. People often want to know the least amount they need in order to get by. That is a very interesting social dynamic. Fortunately, we have a pretty good idea regarding the minimum, but more importantly, we understand that exceeding the minimum has the potential to greatly improve one’s quality of life.
Most of the credible scientific organizations are reasonably close when suggesting the “minimum.” For example, The American College of Sports Medicine’s (ACSM) overall recommendation is for most adults to engage in at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity exercise each week. Note that ACSM uses the phrase “at least.” The reason for this minimum is because you also have to factor in what you do the rest of the day. It is no longer enough to simply consider whether you engage in adequate amounts of weekly exercise, but you also have to consider how much time you spend in sedentary activities such as watching television or working on a computer. The more those sedentary activities are part of your lifestyle, the less chance that 150 minutes per week will be adequate to help you manage your heart health, your bone health, your muscle health, your quality of sleep and so much more.
This next part might shock you. The average person sits approximately nine hours per day! As Nilofer Merchant recently noted in the Harvard Business Review, sitting is the smoking of our generation. Just sitting one hour results in a reduction of enzymes that burn fat by as much as 90 percent. In a recent article published in the journal Circulation, it was determined that for each additional hour of television that a person sat and watched per day, the risk of dying increased by 11 percent. That gets your attention a little bit, doesn’t it? It is one thing to talk about gaining a few pounds here or there, or blood pressure going up a little, or feeling tired because you don’t have time for exercise. But dying. Yikes!
Clearly, many people in our community are “getting it.” Our centers of physical therapy, fitness and wellness have thousands of adults of all ages who have chosen to make exercise a daily habit. They know that the days of trying to do it “if they have time” are no longer adequate for avoiding sickness and being able to live life to the fullest. They have all chosen to make every one of the four mainstays of a fitness program – aerobic conditioning, muscle strengthening, flexibility and functional training – part of their daily life. So, stop smoking – ahem – sitting! Get active! FBN
By Carl DeRosa PT, PhD
DeRosa Physical Therapy, Flagstaff