In the August edition of the Mayo Clinic Proceedings, an interesting article caught my eye. The study is entitled The Influence of Change in Cardiorespiratory Fitness With Short-Term Exercise Training on Mortality Risk From The Ball State Adult Fitness Longitudinal Lifestyle Study.
The study followed 683 men and women to see what the relationship between their CRF before and after an exercise program and future death rates is. The exercise involved the use of a treadmill or a stationary bicycle.
Cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) refers to the ability of the heart and lungs to supply oxygen to skeletal muscles during sustained physical activity.
Before the exercise program was started, the subjects were given instructions on how to improve their physical fitness. The exercise training prescription consisted of a progressive increase in the intensity, duration, and number of times that the exercise had to be done.
As a side note. The difference between exercise and training is that training involves a progressive increase in the amount of exercise. The body is quite efficient such that it adjusts the blood supply, fuel, and oxygenation to any physical activity. The body’s metabolism will adapt to it. That means there will be less benefit as time goes on.
An example of increasing the intensity will be running faster on a treadmill. Increasing the duration means prolonging the exercise time from 20 minutes to 25 minutes per session. Increasing the number of times can be within the day or within the week.
It may look tiring and time-consuming, but the benefit will be that the “exerciser” will have greater cardiorespiratory endurance and will be better, faster, and stronger.
Back to the study. The subjects’ cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) was then rechecked after 3 to 8 months of exercise training. Not everybody gets the same level of improvement with their exercise because the increase is dependent on how much workout and how each individual adapted to the activity. That is why the subjects are grouped into their level of fitness after the study. Then in 2017, the investigators looked at the number of study subjects that died and from what cause and compared it to their level of CRF.
After following the group for about 20 to 40 years, the people who had better improvement in their CRF for that short period (3 to 8 months of exercise training) from many years ago had lower mortality from all-cause. All-cause includes heart attacks, strokes, cancer, infections, and everything else. The better the CRF improvement, the lower the death rate. In contrast, the people that did not increase their CRF had a higher death rate from all-cause.
What is the Significance of the study?
Even if exercise training is only for a few months, the effect on the most critical parameter of health (a longer life) persists for decades after.
This study echoes the previous articles on this website: Physical Activity Correlates with Life Span.
The reasons are discussed in this article, How Does Exercise Prolong Life?
Sweating with or without exercising also brings benefits to the body, as discussed in The Surprising Benefits of Sweating.
An editorial from the same Mayo Clinic Proceeding journal contained a quote from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,
“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.”
Thanks for reading.
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Related Readings:
- How can exercise and low carb diet burn fat? – a doodle video
- How Does Exercise Prolong Life?
- The Benefits of Resistance Training
- The Surprising Benefits of Sweating
- The Good and Faithful Servant
- Effect of Short Term Exercise on Mortality
- What are Exerkines?
- Exercise Guidelines
- Why do You Need an Excellent Performance Status?
- Sarcopenia: The Scourge of Aging
- How to be Active from Sedentary
Image Credits:
- Fitness Gym Photo by Humphrey Muleba on Unsplash
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