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Is Intense Exercise Necessary to Keep One Healthy?
Exercise can help prevent heart disease! This is an undisputable fact. However, is it necessary for one to participate in vigorous-intensity exercise in order to have the health benefits? Many people believe that a proper and fruitful exercise should consist of a lot of perspiration, panting and pain. They do not think that moderate-intensity exercises like walking or cycling would have much health benefits. Such thinking might not be true as several studies have suggested that moderate-intensity exercises are just as good to health as those more intense exercises. A study by United States researchers on 240 middle-aged sedentary people even reported in 2007 that moderate exercises might be better than vigorous-intensity exercises in protecting against heart disease and diabetes. Being one of the largest exercise studies in people with chronic heart failure, a recent study that was published in early April 2009 in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that moderate exercise helped over 2,000 chronic heart failure patients feel better and reduced mortality. People are more likely to stick to moderate-intensity physical activities such as swimming, hiking, Tai Chi, Pilates and golfing, unlike the more intense workouts. This would allow them to be more active regularly so as to reap the health benefits of regular exercise. Moreover, people are more likely to engage in moderate-intensity exercises with longer duration than vigorous-intensity exercises. One should not forget that the duration of a good exercise is just as important as its intensity.
Most health experts believe that exercising at least 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week would help an average-sized adult to get most of the health benefits that a moderate-intensity exercise program can offer. In fact, people can receive additional health benefits with greater frequency and longer duration. Those who wish to trim their excess weight should take up moderate-intensity exercise of duration between 150 and 200 minutes each week. For vigorous workout, there is always the issue of safety. For sedentary individuals, participating in vigorous exercise suddenly might not be safe as this could potentially lead to musculo-skeletal problems and possibly cardiac problems, especially in more elderly individuals. Nevertheless, this does not imply that intense workouts should be done away with. In reality, both moderate and intense exercises promote health. Any form of regular physical activity will improve one’s quality of life, lower one’s risk of chronic diseases and maintain strong bone and muscle mass. But the intensity level at which one should participate the activity would depend on his or her fitness level. For example, people who are healthy and fit people could take up both moderate- and vigorous-intensity activities as part of a complete physical activity program. According to a United States whose findings were published in May 2009 in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, moderate exercise means brisk walking about 100 steps every minute. One can use MHR (maximum heart rate = 220 minus one’s age) to find out how hard one is exercising. For moderate intensity, one should aim to achieve 70 to 80 percent of his or her MHR. A walk-and-talk test can help those who are still confused. At a moderate-intensity level, one should be able to talk (but not in long sentences), breathe harder and perspire lightly. On the other hand, those who have taken in vigorous-intensity workout require more physical effort and cause larger increase in breathing or heart rate, so they would be difficult to hold a conversation when engaging in vigorous-intensity activities.
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