81GyGuy said...
Everyone's always been told that swimming is the best exercise.
Well, at least one high-powered authority, the folks at Harvard Medical School, agree, listing swimming as the best exercise among what they consider to be the top five. (See link below).
From the link:
"Just having to walk by treadmills, stationary bikes, and weight machines can be enough to make you head straight back home to the couch. Yet some of the best physical activities for your body don't require the gym or ask you to get fit enough to run a marathon. These "workouts" can do wonders for your health."
1. Swimming.
"The buoyancy of the water supports your body and takes the strain off painful joints so you can move them more fluidly. Swimming is good for individuals with arthritis because it's less weight-bearing ... Research has found that swimming can also improve your mental state and put you in a better mood."
2. Tai Chi.
Tai Chi? So the article claims.
"It's particularly good for older people because balance is an important component of fitness, and balance is something we lose as we get older."
and
" ... it's been called "meditation in motion."
3. Strength training
"Lifting light weights won't bulk up your muscles, but it will keep them strong."
"The more muscle you have, the more calories you burn, so it's easier to maintain your weight."
" ... strength training may also help preserve brain function in later years."
4. Walking.
"Walking is simple, yet powerful. It can help you stay trim, improve cholesterol levels, strengthen bones, keep blood pressure in check, lift your mood, and lower your risk for a number of diseases (diabetes and heart disease, for example). A number of studies have shown that walking and other physical activities can even improve memory and resist age-related memory loss."
"All you need is a well-fitting and supportive pair of shoes."
AND, rather interestingly,
5. Kegel exercises.
As we of course know:
"(They)strengthen the pelvic floor muscles that support the bladder. Strong pelvic floor muscles can go a long way toward preventing incontinence."
The article closes by noting
"Many of the things we do for fun (and work) count as exercise. Raking the yard counts as physical activity. So does ballroom dancing and playing with your kids or grandkids. As long as you're doing some form of aerobic exercise for at least 30 minutes a day, and you include two days of strength training a week, you can consider yourself an "active" person."
But, again, swimming tops their list.
And I suspect that going to many other lists of the "best" exercises one can do will find swimming listed as number one as well.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/5-of-the-best-exercises-you-can-ever-do#:~:text=1%20swimming.%20you%20might%20call%20swimming%20the%20best,the%20pelvic%20floor%20muscles%20that%20support%20the%20bladder.
Swimming is a very erobic exercise which can keep your Cardio vascular system very healthy even in your senior years. But even performed by high end athletes is only one of the many activities which will keep you very fit. To call swimming the best exercise is I believe taking the Harvard Medical school out of context. And after almost 73 years of a daily active life, nobody has told me or others in our active seniors group that swimming is the best exercise. Contrary to what is in the previous quote, swimming doesn,t even come up when doing a search on " Best exercises one can do" because there are so many physical activities out there and we all have our preferences on what we are comfortable in doing and what is the best.
Reading the brief quote from the Harvard Medical School, the activities listed are including mostly older folks with outlying physical issues, arthritis, obesity, poor motor controls, while stateing active people are those who rake leaves, ballroom dance, play with grand kids, wash their cars, clean the BBQ, hey way more active than slouching the whole weekend watching a favorite professional team on a square headed girl friend. My point is the Harvard folks are bright
cookies who are just trying to get us old farts off our a++rses and into some physical activity that will stimulate our bodies and minds before the grim reaper takes us way too early.
BTW ,writing this after spending the last 3 days pre skiing the different courses that will constitute the Masters World Cup cross country skiing event in a town with a mountain back drop that would make the Swiss Alps look tame. Racing starts tomorrow.
One last bit of info from the internet, cross country skiing top athletes have the highest cardio vascular fitness of any other sport due in part that they use almost all of the main muscles in the body as opposed to running(legs), or swimming (upper body). I am sure triathletes are a close second.
Wish me luck tomorrow.
Dave