Exercise and Strengthening - Why YOU need it!

The simplest reason I could give you is that people who have a reasonable degree of fitness and strength recover from injuries MUCH faster than those who don’t. However I think that Jodie Iliani (a long time fitness and personal trainer in the Southern Highlands), said it best when she once told me that every person she ever met who feels generally well and happy, moves a lot.

Please note that you don’t need to read all of this blog to get the basic message. I have written this blog so that as you read on the information gets more detailed. You can choose how much information you want to digest.

So what does exercise and strengthening do?

I will go into more detail later on the cellular physiology but for those who just want the basic facts and observations, here goes.

Exercise and general movement helps move fluids around. It increases the number of blood vessel sprouts and gets these blood vessels developing deeper into the muscles. It also helps flush all the cells in our bodies. Organs get a good squeeze which also helps with the interchange of nutrient and wastes. Motility (a technical word for movement and contraction) of the intestines is also improved. Strengthening exercises also make the structural system of the body - muscles, connective tissues and bones stronger making them more resistant to injury. Exercise helps our nervous system operate more effectively - with better reflexes and balance as obvious examples. This makes us less likely to injure ourselves, preventing falls for example. I cannot count the number of times that a patient has told me that their mother or father was doing fine until they had a fall and then everything went down hill from there.

Increasing our cardio vascular fitness assists the heart and blood vessels in keeping free of fatty build ups (called plaques), thereby preventing strokes and other cardiovascular related illnesses. Cardiovascular accidents (CVAs) are the ones that can kill us quickly and without warning. Exercise has been shown to be an important preventative measure and when in the habit, is really, really easy is to do.

Scar tissue following surgery is also very important. When not moved, over time scar tissue will always contract. This can cause a painful pull on other pain sensitive structures. Exercise helps to prevent this by keeping the scar tissue moving so as to minimise this contraction. Scars form by laying down connective tissue to an injured area and lay fibers in all directions. So there are fibres everywhere, not just those required to resist the forces applied to the injured area. When you exercise, over time the fibres that remain are mostly the ones that resist the forces applied to the previously injured area. This does not happen when the scar tissue is not moved around.

What type of exercise is best?

Aim for low impact exercise over high impact exercise. This ensures that the joints last longer and you are able to do so for many years to come. This is especially important if you are starting later in life when there is probably a degree of wear and tear in the joints already. Interestingly though no matter how late someone starts exercising (short of needing a joint replacement), they always seem to get the benefits down the track, it just takes longer for your body to adjust. You don’t need to exercise so hard you are in pain for days on end but expect some genuine discomfort when you start as your body is adapting to a new stimulus and must undergo changes at a cellular level. Push through the initial discomfort and you will find that in time, you may be a bit sore following your exercise session but this will only last for a couple of hours at most.

Good examples of beneficial low impact exercise includes walking, cycling, swimming, yoga, pilates and Taichi (Taiqi). However the most important thing is DOING SOMETHING so some high impact exercise should still be considered if it makes you get up and move. For example I do martial arts training that would be considered very high impact but I love it and it keeps me motivated when its time to do the low impact stuff that I find otherwise boring like stretching.

Work out at an intensity and/or combination of exercises to get to your breathing to the point where you would be slightly breathless if talking to someone whilst engaged in your chosen activity. This will give you the optimum heart rate for exercising to be healthy rather than “fit” in the usual sense of the word.

Do I really need strength training?

Resistance training for strengthening is vital. This does not involve building up like Arnold. It can be high or low impact depending on how you do it. Our lifestyles are now so automated that we just don’t do any of the day to day manual activities that we would have years ago. Just talk to anyone of grandparent age and you will find that they did a lot of day to day manual activity - they walked everywhere and most jobs had at least a manual component. For example, most people had a vegetable garden and washing, wringing and drying of clothes was all done by hand. Because of this, people were generally much stronger and leaner. Take a look at pictures of Diggers heading off to the World War I and II - you will not find anyone who isn’t lean and strong looking.

You need to do some strengthening exercises to optimise your health. My observation after many years in clinic is that stronger people are just so much more injury resistant and recover ridiculously faster than those who do not engage in this type of activity. In addition to strengthening muscles and connective tissues, as already noted, resistance training also helps to keep our bones strong and healthy. This is becoming more and more important as our population ages. Bones that are “osteopenic” (in the early stages of losing mass and structure) can be restored to a state that is normal for your age. However once bones become “osteoporotic”, a recovery is not really possible. This alone is an excellent reason for resistance training.

Strength training also stimulates your metabolism which means you even burn calories whilst you’re resting!! That should be good news to anyone who struggles with the extra kilos.

Exercises like pilates, Taichi (if “push hands” is involved), and some varieties of yoga have the advantage of getting the cardiovascular system working at the same time as providing adequate resistance training. Great choices if you are time constrained.

How about stretching?

Stretching should not be overlooked as part of any exercise program. Whilst the exact mechanism seems to vary with the decade, we do know that stretching helps reduce post exercise soreness and prevent injuries. My take on this is stretching helps to lengthen the blood vessels within the muscles and gets the most surface area available for the best interchange of nutrients and wastes, thus aiding recovery. Stretching also gets the muscles and connective tissues integrated with the nervous system to give the best combination available between strength, agility and flexibility. All of this adds up to better injury prevention. Stretching really is uncomfortable when you first start but you will get used to it.

How often do I need to exercise?

The standard line is to do this 3 times per week and this is fine for maintenance of your existing condition. HOWEVER, you really need more than this if you want to improve on where you are currently at. If you know you need to improve rather than maintain, you need to do 5-6 times per week. Sorry about this but I find too many people are given the 3 times a week line and then give up when the results don’t come. The good news is that you only need about 30mins a day. It takes about 6 weeks to feel the benefits and about 3 months to actually see the results, a slimmer waist line and better muscle tone for example. “3 months! You’re kidding!” is the response I usually get. However, I’m talking about a life long habit, so what’s 3 months?

Small habits that lift your general level of activity compounded over time can make a big difference to your health long term. For example, when you go to the shops, park your car in one spot and walk everywhere in between rather than driving the car 300metres to the next shop!! If you don’t live too far away, ride your bike rather than drive. Don’t ignore the escalator but at least walk up it.

Do I need to change my diet if I exercise?

Strangely enough, exercising often improves your diet. Exercise seems to stimulate a need to eat better - more fresh foods in the form of an increase in fruits and vegetables. I have seen no experimental evidence to prove this claim but definitely note this as an observation from patients and friends. It does seem logical though that as you increase your level of activity, thereby placing a natural stress on your body, you will need more nutrient dense foods to repair and maintain your system. One thing that has been well tested is the assertion that people who eat a lot of fruit and vegetables have far less problems with degenerative illnesses.

Increased activity and healthy, nutrient dense (as opposed to calorie dense) foods gets us closer to the lifestyle our genetic code was designed for, that of a nomadic hunter gather. If we use our bodies in a manner close to what it was designed for, it just makes sense that it will operate at an optimum level. How lucky are we to live at a time and in a country where we have such an abundant food supply and can pick and choose foods providing good nutrition and choose exercise as a matter of leisure rather than survival.

Summary

In summary you need patterns of exercise that get your whole body working. Best results occur when you choose exercises that include your cardio-vascular system some strength training and stretching. Aim for 5-6 times per week if you know you need to improve your health, 3-4 times per week if you want to maintain where you’re at. However to start with I just want you to do whatever you like to do best - just start with something!

Hopefully that convinces you that exercise is essential and you will now get out and do more. Exercising for health can actually be very simple and time efficient. Come in and talk to us if you want some ideas or advice on where to start. For most people the problem is just getting started and once you get into the habit, its a lot easier than you think. If your problem is more complex, we can steer you in the right direction whether directing you to a personal trainer or even your GP if necessary. In fact why not visit your GP, get some blood test results then compare again in 3 months? You won’t be disappointed in the results!! You will also feel so good that the improved results won’t even surprise you.

More detailed cellular physiology

For those that just want to know what they should do and why they should do it, you can stop reading now. For those that want brief technical details of what is happening at a cellular level, here goes....

Keep in mind the Osteopathic principles when reading what follows:

1. the body is a unit and all parts work for the benefit of each other
2. structure and function are inter-related
3. the body has self healing and regulating mechanisms

Part of Osteopathic philosophy is that movement is required for life. Our body is just a collection of small cells specialised for the task they carry out. The cells operate for the benefit of each other and thereby the organism (us) as a whole. Liver cells clean and draw nutrients from the blood, cells of the small intestine draw nutrients from food, the nervous system carries messages to enable us to interact with and navigate the world. The skin provides a barrier from the inside of the body to the outside environment.

The bones provide a structure so we are not just a blob of tissues and the joints, muscles and connective tissues move us around. Traditionally this was to get us to our next meal or to run from or fight off danger. This is where things have gone astray and we will get back to this point in another blog where we will look at the “autonomic” system (fight and flight response) and how it affects cell structure and health.

I said that movement is required for life to exist. Well this is true at the level of every cell. Each cell has it’s own “cyto-structure”, like a skeleton for the cell, it also has a cell wall that separates the inside environment from the outside. There are also mechanisms to generate energy for the cells processes, methods of drawing in nutrients and getting waste products out of the cell. It even has it’s own memory bank - the nucleus of the cell. Sound familiar? It is almost like the cell is a mini version of us! So nutrients are being drawn in, wastes expelled and there are processes going on in the cell at every moment. There is a lot of movement going on and energy expended by every cell in our bodies!! The cell is totally dependent on its environment for its nutrients. So the cell cannot operate at full capacity without the conditions both inside and outside the cell being absolutely optimal.

Moving our bodies around, creates movement in the blood supply and the fluid filled space between the cells. The blood gets nutrients to the cells by diffusing fluid and nutrients into the fluid space between and around the cells. This “micro” movement of fluids is enhanced when you are moving your body and is absolutely essential to keep these fluids moving and thereby constantly flushing this space between the cells. This is what creates optimal nutrition and waste removal.

As mentioned at the start of this blog, the organs themselves get a good squeeze when exercising and moving about generally. This further enhances the micro environment for nutrient exchange and even helps the organs to do their job. For example exercise helps the intestines, both large and small move food and later fecal matter thereby assisting absorption of foods and prevention of constipation. Exercise also give the heart and lungs a good workout, increasing the capacity of both organs.

Have you ever had your arm in one position for some time and had it “go to sleep”? This is a great example of what I am talking about. Your overall body movement has been compromised, blood keeps getting pumped into the area and it doesn’t get removed at the same rate that it is going into the area. Nutrients are actually still getting to the tissues of the arm but the waste products (CO2 etc) can’t get out fast enough so the cells can’t use the nutrients available. (No different to eating a load of chocolate cake and then having no room left for the vegetables) So the nerves get “starved” of oxygen and the arm “goes to sleep”. Leave it there for a while longer and the muscles etc also build up waste products, at this point it will get very painful. Move the arm around, it is very painful at first and then as the blood and fluids begin to flow once more, a happy balance is restored and things return to normal. The pain goes away too.

This optimisation of the environment around the cell also has a positive effect on the cell structure itself. Research is increasingly showing that the cell wall is indeed the brain of the cell rather than just the nucleus. The nucleus stores the memories, the code of the proteins that the cell needs to produce but the cell wall is what reacts to the outside environment. The cell wall builds new receptors into the wall itself that are a direct consequence of the hormones and nutrients available to it. This in turn creates the cascade of events that determine how the cell actually works. Without the correct environment, the cell cannot even get the elements it needs to operate effectively. It is exercise that increases the efficiency of nutrients flowing to the cell. This means that the cell wall has the elements available to build the cell in a way that optimises cell function. To put it another way, without the right environment, the cell is not able to access the building blocks it needs to work efficiently. A cell that functions properly creates a happy organ and thereby creates a happy body. A happy energised body tends to create a happier us!

And really that’s the whole point of good health - to be happier and more able to interact with the world around us. Ask any of my aging patients and they will tell you that as health declines, quality of life falls away. When the process of chronic degenerative illness starts, the progress picks up speed. Why not try preventative measures instead of looking for the magic bullet in the form of a pill or procedure that never really matches the natural function of your body. Exercise is a crucial component of maintaining good lasting health!

Please feel free to make an appointment and discuss any of these points and we will help you with a program that’s best for you. We will also help steer you in the right direction if you have other issues that need to be addressed before commencing a general program.