Are you worried about whether the exercise you are doing today could lead to arthritis in years to come?

Or are you using the risk of arthritis as an excuse for not pulling your exercise gear on and getting into it?

If so, I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is that researchers have confirmed that exercise does not contribute to arthritis. The bad news is…. No more excuses!

In an article put together by the Harvard Medical School, they reported a number of studies showing that exercise can be safe for joints, both in older, overweight people and in athletes.

In a study that commenced in 1993, researchers examined the exercise habits of 1279 people who where free of arthritis and whose average age was 53 years.

The participants answered detailed questions about their exercise habits, including walking, jogging, being active enough to work up a sweat, and their overall exercise level. They each provided information about knee injuries and symptoms of knee pain and stiffness. In addition, all the volunteers were weighed and measured, and they each had a full series of knee x-rays.

Between 2002 and 2005, the subjects answered the same questions about knee pain and injury, and the x-rays were repeated. The x-rays were independently assessed by two experts who had no knowledge of the participants’ exercise history.

The researchers found no link between exercise and arthritis of the knee. The most active people had the same risk of arthritis as the least active, in terms of both symptoms and x-ray abnormalities.

Whether people jogged or walked made little difference, even though jogging subjects the lower body to much higher impact and stress than walking.

Even though obesity is an independent risk factor for arthritis, physically active overweight members of the study did not have any more knee problems than their slim counterparts.

Other studies, including one from Australia, supported the view that walking and running do not increase the risk of arthritis. In fact a British study in 2005 found that both walking and muscle-strengthening were safe and effective, at reducing pain and disability in people with arthritis. Similarly, studies from the Netherlands and UK reported that graded exercise programs are safe and eff ective for patients with arthritis of the hip or knee. So what does all that mean? No more excuses.

Note – it’s still important to wear supportive shoes and I recommend running on soft surfaces whenever possible.

The World Masters Games get underway in Sydney today and prove that age is no barrier to being fit and to eing competitive.

Australia has a 101-year old man in the lawn bowls and an incredible 98-year old female swimmer competing against competitors from 104 countries.

For many people, having the goal of competition is what they need to keep them motivated to train hard and stay as fit as they can be.  For others, staying fit and healthy is the goal and the fun of competing against other people is just a bonus.  Either way the Masters Games are a great event to keep people fit and healthy past 100 years old and to show younger people what can be done with a little sweat and hard work.

If you have a competitive itch that didn’t get scratched when you were young, or you need some added motivation to get out there and stay fit, why not think about competing in the next round of Masters Games in a few years time.

This is a question I get asked nearly every year, usually from someone who just hates to miss an exercise session. I didn’t think I was going to get asked this year as winter is almost over in Australia and most of my friends and colleagues have escaped the Swine flu that is sweeping the world.

However, in the last week as a couple of friends have succumbed to some sort of flu-like disease and whether they should exercise or not has come up in conversation.

Whether you exercise or not when you’ve got a cold or flu is obviously dependent on how ill you are and the severity of your symptoms. But it also depends on where the symptoms are in your body.

If all of your symptoms are in your head (blocked or runny nose, sneezing, watery eyes, and/or scratchy throat) then it’s usually okay to start your workout. I suggest you exercise at a lower intensity than normal and see how you feel. If after 10 minutes or so, if you feel better (or at least no worse) you can increase your intensity and finish your workout.

If you start to feel worse or unusually fatigued, then some chicken soup, vitamin C, fluids, and a few days rest are probably the better option.

But what if “It’s not all in my head…” “

If your symptoms are below the neck (aching muscles, a rasping cough which seems to come from your chest, nausea, vomiting, and/or diarrhea) or if you have a fever then you would be better off giving your exercise a miss and having a rest. Symptoms in your chest or body usually mean you are fighting off an infection. Your body needs all its reserves to fight the illness and get well again. It is not a time to stick doggedly to your routine.

Why you exercise The purpose of exercise is to improve or maintain your fitness. If you exercise while you have symptoms below the neck, chances are you won’t be able to push yourself very hard and even if you do, the body won’t have the capacity to adapt to the exercise stimulus, so you’re wasting your time and energy.

Not only that but it can be dangerous to work out under such conditions, and rest will help you to recover much faster.

Remember….

If it’s in your head… get out of bed. If it’s in your chest…. give it a rest.

What’s your health, fitness or exercise question?

If you have a question about your health, fitness or exercise, send it to me at david@lifelongfitness.info. That way I can make sure I’m addressing the issues you want answers to.

It was Australian Prime Minister in the 1970s Malcolm Fraser, who said “life wasn’t meant to be easy.”

I don’t agree.

I think life should be easy and you should do everything you can to make life as easy as possible.

That doesn’t mean you don’t try to achieve great things and don’t have to work hard. That doesn’t make life easy, it just makes it a struggle. (Try living on no income)

What it means is you should always look for the easiest way to achieve your goals and dreams. How can you get what you want and do what you want, legally and ethically, with the least amount of effort.

What’s this got to do with exercise and fitness? Everything.

There are hundreds of health reasons for exercising and staying fit but I believe the most compelling reason is that it makes your life easier.

By spending 30-60 minutes a day exercising, you make the other 1380 – 1410 easier. Why? Because your body is only working at 40 or 50 percent of what it is capable of.

Imagine you are doing a job in the garden at home that requires you to move bags of mulch that weigh 30 kg. (Guess what I was doing last weekend?) If the maximum you can lift is 40 kg, you are working at 75% each time you move a bag. That sounds like hard work!

If you do regular strength training however, the maximum you could lift might be 60 kg. Now each time you move a bag, you are only working at 50%.

It will be a lot easier and you could keep doing it for longer before you get fatigued. Add to that the reduced chance of injury and it makes sense.

It’s easy to find examples involving strength, but the same principle applies to aerobic fitness. The fitter you are, the easier it is to walk to the shops, play with the kids or do your job.

Saving for retirement is about investing money now to make life easier later on. Its the same with exercise except you get the pay-off straight away. Yes, being fit will certainly make life easier as you get older but it also makes life easier now.

There has been a lot of press about the latest government report into the health system in Australia lately.  It essentially says that our current healht system is bursting at the seams and can’t cope with the demand for medical services.  A big factor in this is the ageing population and the rising incidence of obesity and overweight.

In my mind,  the health system will never keep up with demand.  If we build more hospitals we will certainly fill them up and be in the same place we are now, just with more people in hospital and it costing the community more.

Prevention is the only way we will ever have a health system that can cope.

Prevention means keeping people fit and the older you get, the more important fitness becomes.

The Sydney Morning Herald has a great article from some very knowledgeable academics about the importance of preventive health.

Here is the article

Here in Perth, the City to Surf (fun!) run is less than a week away and I know of a quite a few people who have entered, some for the first time.

It has been great to watch and hear about their training and progress they have made as they prepare for the big event. It has highlighted the power of having a specific goal to achieve by a certain date.

They have become very focused on what they needed to do in order to complete the run or walk. They’ve done more than they would have otherwise and they have certainly pushed themselves harder.

That’s the real benefit of setting yourself a fitness goal or challenge. When you have something that you want to achieve, be it an organised event, a holiday involving an activity or something you intend to complete on your own, you plan your fitness routine around achieving that goal.

From my experience, because most people want the activity itself to be as enjoyable as possible, they push themselves that little bit harder in training. They are prepared to hurt more now for the reward of completing their goal without suffering too much.

What they are really doing is pushing themselves outside their comfort zone and as a result they are getting fitter. This will make completing the actual event either easier or you’ll go faster on the day, depending on how competitive you are!

Either way you will enjoy the result that much more and you will have got fitter in the process.

If you haven’t got a specific goal that you are training for like the City to Surf, make one up. It could be to do your normal walk/run 3 minutes faster or to complete a triathlon or do the Coast to Coast walk across England.

It doesn’t matter what the goal is, as long as it challenges you to work hard and get fitter to achieve it.

Set another goal

Once you have successfully accomplished you goal, be careful not to let all that hard work go to waste by stopping your training. Make it your goal to maintain your fitness until you set yourself another challenge to work towards. Remember it is easier to stay fit than get fit so keep your training going.

Exercising with someone else or in a group has long been suggested as a way to make you more likely to stick to your program and to make exercise more enjoyable.

I’ve certainly found it to be the case. I almost always ride with others and swim with someone else.

I’ve just got back from my usual Saturday bike ride and although it wasn’t that enjoyable this morning, I’m glad I went.

The weather was terrible; cold, wet, windy and dark at the start.

It was certainly, the sort of day when it would be easy to roll over and go back to sleep. I made sure I got up quickly before I thought too much about it!

For whatever reason, my legs felt heavy and tired. I certainly wasn’t bursting with energy or enthusiasm like I am most Saturdays. (It’s always easier on the weekends)

My legs felt like this from the time I left home to meet my friends, 4 km away, but once I got to the meeting spot I was committed. There’s no way I could go home after turning up.

During the ride I never really felt that good and I didn’t get up the hills as fast as usual, but I wasn’t going to turn around and go home half way through the ride.

I thought about taking a few short cuts, which some of the older riders do, but hung in there with my friend, who realized I was having a bad day, and waited for me at the top of the hills.

I finished the ride and was very glad to get home to a hot shower.

I’m sure you have had similar days when you just don’t feel like exercising and never really get going. We all do.

If I had been exercising on my own it would have been easy to stay in bed, cut my ride short or cruise along at a slow pace.

The fact that I was exercising with others helped to keep me going. Not only was I committed to meet them at the agreed time, but just talking with them during the ride took my mind off how bad my legs felt!

If you are struggling to keep to your exercise routine or find it easy to skip sessions, find a friend or better still a group of friends to exercise with. It won’t necessarily make it easier physically, but mentally it is much easier because you get dragged along with the group.

If you don’t know of a group who exercise together, why not start one. Your friends will thank you for it (most days).

Variety is the spice of life; especially when it comes to fitness training.

If you’re doing the same long, slow, cardio workout over and over again, then don’t expect better results. This doesn’t mean aerobic exercise isn’t important, but if you want to get fitter, faster, in less time then you need to do interval training.

Interval training is where you alternate hard exercise with rest or easier exercise.

You see, to get fitter you have to workout with more intensity. And since you can’t go hard for very long, you need to break up your hard exercise with easy bits. Now I’ve said this before so if you’ve been getting Stay Sharp newsletters for a while, you’re probably thinking what I’ve just said is nothing new.

What I want to share with you, is how you can vary your intervals so you keep improving your fitness and not get bored doing the same thing over and over again.

Here are some options to vary your interval training workouts.

1. Switch exercise methods

You might alternate:

• skipping with body weight exercises
• running with pushups
• treadmill running with an exercise bike

The possibilities are limited only by your imagination and the equipment you have; so be creative.

2. Increase or decrease the length of the interval

You can do 3 minutes bursts or some 30 second bursts; you could do fast walking for one block or 3 blocks; or you could do 5 minutes of hard cycling on the flat or 1 minute hard getting up a hill.

Typically the shorter the duration of the interval, the higher the intensity. Just mix it up for different sessions or within the one session.

3. Increase or decrease the number of intervals per workout

Obviously the more intervals you do the more work you are doing but don’t fall into the trap of doing more at the expense of doing them hard.

A client of mine was doing 10 repeats up Jacobs Ladder (221 steps). I suggested he only do 5 but go faster. Not only did his fitness improve, but his workouts were shorter which meant he had more time to read the morning paper and enjoy his coffee.

Don’t sacrifice quality for quantity.

4. Increase or decrease the rest time between intervals

By reducing how long you rest for, you give the muscles less time to recover so they have to work harder the next interval. This is a reasonable strategy if you are trying to get faster, especially if you have a race or event coming up.

Just be careful not to shorten your rest to the point where you can’t go as hard during the interval. Quality versus quantity is the key.

Am I fit enough for intervals?

Some people have said to me that they don’t think they are fit enough to do intervals. While it is important to have reasonable fitness before you push yourself HARD, the good thing about exercise is it is self-limiting. If you are not very fit, you’ll get puffed at a moderate pace. As you get fitter, you will have to go faster to get puffed. The important thing is not how fast you go compared to others, but how hard you are pushing yourself. Provided you don’t enjoy torturing yourself, you’re unlikely to push yourself too hard.

Will I feel good doing intervals?

If you are doing them at a high enough intensity then probably not! You will however feel good, maybe even great, after you’ve cooled down, had a shower and recovered.

And they’ll make the rest of the day seem easy.