Dr Parr Says…

You probably know that participating in regular physical activity is among the most important things you can do to improve your health. This activity can include exercise as well as just about anything else that gets you moving.

Parking further away at the store, walking the dog, even doing yard work are all recommended ways to be more active. The message, from me and others, is that every little bit of activity counts. Of course, doing more activity, including both higher intensity (traditional exercise) and longer duration (a longer walk) can bring greater health benefits.

What you may not know is that being sedentary, especially spending time sitting, is just as detrimental to your health as not being active. In fact, spending most of the day sitting can undo some of the benefits of exercising, as I explain in my Health & Fitness column in the Aiken Standard this week.

It’s true—a person who doesn’t exercise but moves a lot during the day at work or home may be healthier than someone who exercises every day but spends much of the rest of their day sitting! (To be sure, that person is much better off than someone who doesn’t exercise and sits all day.)

You may also be surprised how much time most people, yourself included, spend sitting. While some people have jobs that keep them active, most occupations involve sitting much of the day.

The situation outside of work isn’t much better, between lengthy commutes in the car and hours of “screen time” at home.

This sedentary time comes at the expense of being active, especially doing vigorous activity that causes you to break a sweat, like exercise. And the extent to which we avoid vigorous activity is shocking!

One study used measurements of physical activity recorded continuously for several days in over 2,500 adults to determine how much time the typical American spends being active or sedentary. The results show that the average adult spends about 8 hours each day being sedentary (sitting, mostly), and about 6 hours being active. Almost all that activity time was light intensity activity, around 20–30 minutes was moderate-intensity (a brisk walk), and less than a minute of vigorous activity per day. Less than a minute!

As the author of this study noted, many people seem to be living from “one chair to another.”

Men were slightly more active than women, and overweight and obese men and women were less active than normal weight individuals. Obese women got just one hour of exercise per year. Obese men were not much better, with less than three hours of vigorous activity per year. These levels of physical activity are far below the recommended minimum of 150 minutes of moderate activity or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise per week.

The consequences of sitting so much instead of being active can be severe, including higher body fatness, poor physical function, and increased risk of chronic diseases including diabetes, heart disease, and some cancers.

Another study suggests that these consequences also include an increased risk of disability. In this study, older adults who were less active reported more difficulty completing self-care tasks including getting in and out of bed, eating, dressing, or walking. In fact, each additional hour of sedentary time increased the risk of this type of disability by almost 50%.

Most of us live a life that includes too much sedentary time, especially sitting, and too little activity. This has serious health consequences both now and as we age. But you can take steps (literally!) to become more active by sitting less, moving more, and making time each day to be active.

If you exercise, especially if you lift weights, you have probably heard the adage, “No pain, no gain.” This may serve as motivation for some people, but the belief that exercise results in pain might be a good reason not to work out for others. If you are one of those people, you should know that idea that exercise should hurt is simply wrong—muscle pain during or following exercise usually suggests an injury. However, some muscle soreness is unavoidable, especially if you are new to exercise. This is the topic of my Health & Fitness column in the Aiken Standard this week.

Photo by Genaro Servín from Pexels

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I had lunch with a friend at a casual Mexican place recently. He ordered a burrito without the tortilla (too many carbs), but ate a whole basket of corn chips. Many people make this same choice…cutting out carbohydrates in one way but eating more in another.

To be sure, most of us could easily eat less carbohydrates, but I think we are focusing on the wrong carbohydrate sources. Perhaps we shouldn’t focus on the tortilla as much as the chips that go with it.

I think of this in terms of “necessary” and “unnecessary” carbs. In the example above, the tortilla is a necessary part of the burrito, but the chips are an unnecessary addition. If people are interested in cutting out carbs, skipping the chips make more sense than forgoing the tortilla. This is the topic of my Health & Fitness column in the Aiken Standard this week.

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The winter Olympics start later this week so we will soon be seeing some remarkable athletic performances. The competitors are among the fittest and most highly trained athletes in the world, both in terms of laboratory measures of fitness and in subjective evaluations of skill. Competing in the Olympics requires years of focused, intense training, and some good luck. This is the topic of my Health & Fitness column in the Aiken Standard this week.

First, let’s look at the fitness. This is most evident in the endurance events like cross-country skiing and speed skating. The key to performance in long-duration events like these is for the muscle to contract repeatedly and forcefully without fatigue. In order to do so, the muscle must have a steady supply of oxygen and nutrients. These nutrients are delivered through the blood, which is pumped by the heart. The muscle takes up and uses these nutrients to produce ATP, the form of energy used by the muscle.

After months and years of endurance training the heart gets bigger resulting in the ejection of more blood to the muscle. Within the muscle there is an increase in the number of capillaries, the small blood vessels that deliver blood to the muscle, and mitochondria, the part of the cell that produces most of the ATP. Together, these adaptations allow the muscle to produce more ATP without fatigue, allowing the athlete to sustain a higher intensity (skiing speed, for example) for a longer time without fatigue.

While all Olympic athletes are very physically fit, some events rely more heavily on skill, including figure skating and freestyle snow boarding. For example, in figure skating completing a triple axel involves leaping into the air, spinning three and a half times, and landing backwards. On a 4 mm wide blade. On ice. Or think about the triple cork 1440, a snowboarding trick that involves flipping three times in the air while doing four 360-degree turns.

The athletes who are able to successfully complete these maneuvers have practiced for years to develop the skill and confidence needed to perform them consistently in competition. These are some of the most obvious displays of athletic skill, but all events require good technique. The development of skill in addition to fitness is the main reason why athletes specialize in one area and you don’t see people competing in both downhill skiing and speed skating, for example.

Of course, there is a psychological aspect to Olympic performances. The motivation to put in the training time alone is remarkable. Even more impressive is the ability to focus on an event despite the distractions of the crowds, media, and pressure of competition. This combination of physical and mental preparation is rare—as rare as Olympic gold medalists!

But is training alone sufficient for Olympic-level performance? Could anyone who trains enough make it to the Olympics? The answer is no, because there is another important factor in athletic performance—luck. Luck refers to genetics, which determine potential for attributes like heart size and muscle characteristics. As much as 50% of performance in some events is attributed to genetics. One sports physiologist famously answered the question, “How do I become an Olympic champion?” with “pick different parents!”

Even though most of us will never become Olympic champions we can still experience many of the same benefits of training. All athletes train to develop strength, endurance, and flexibility, which is exactly what we should do, too. And those attributes will help us perform better at work (and play) and help us live a longer healthier life. It will also help us appreciate the training, dedication, and good luck that the athletes bring to the Olympic games.