Improve your quality of life!

More and more clients are coming to me because their doctor's have told them that they "have to" workout, or they have recently had some sort of a diagnosis (high blood pressure, high cholesterol, pending joint replacement) explaining the pain or discomfort that they may have been in for quite an extended period of time.

Almost every single client I work with wishes that they had recognized that they could have prevented the amount of pain and discomfort and decrease in their quality of life if they had introduced fitness into their lifestyle long ago.

People don't want to take medication, yet more and more people are coming to me at younger and younger ages, advised by their doctor because they are on multiple medications for controlling their cholesterol and blood pressure. Both of these "conditions" can be controlled with regular exercise!

In almost all of my clients, with regular exercise and careful monitoring with their doctor, they have been able to reduce the amount of a medication and/or the number of medications they have been taking. In a few cases their cholesterol and/or blood pressure has been controlled to the point that they no longer need to take any medication at all! I would not recommend that anyone do this on their own, without consulting their physician first. My clients have ALWAYS been seeing their prescribing physician regularly for monitoring whenever there has been any adjustment to their medications.

Time is the biggest hurdle I have to overcome. For myself and my clients. We don't have time to workout. One of my favourite quotes:


Those who think they have not time for bodily exercise will sooner or later have to find time for illness. - Edward Stanley, Earl of Derby (1826-93), British statesman. The Conduct of Life, address at Liverpool College, 20 Dec 1873.






I love the internet, I had no idea that quote was from 1873! Mr Stanley must have been quite a pioneer, as I am sure he had no idea the state that the world and our children would be in 136 years later.

So, as reported in the NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/21/health/21real.html
Basically Kelley and Kelley did a "meta-analysis" of data from other papers. Good idea, but it would be great to see more RECENT studies show how beneficial resistance training is for PREVENTING cardiac events.

There are a few studies that introduced resistance training to those that are POST cardiac event:

Haslam DRS, McCartney N, McKelvie RR. Direct measurements of arterial blood pressure during formal weightlifting in cardic patients. Journal of Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation. 8(6):213-225, 1988.

Stewart, Kerry J. EdD; McFarland, Linda D. MS; Weinhofer, John J. MS; Cottrell, Ernie MS; Brown, Carol S. RN; Shapiro, Edward P. MD. Safety and Efficacy of Weight Training Soon After Acute Myocardial Infarction. Journal of Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation. 18 (1):37-44, 1998.

These were big ones for getting resistance training included in the post-cardiac rehabilitation programs and you'll notice, they are about 10 years old. I have not seen any exciting new studies lately, but I'll keep looking and post the info here.

Then we have the studies that show how beneficial resitance training is for Diabetes patients:
Dunstan DW; Daly RM; Owen N; Jolley D; De Courten M; Shaw J; Zimmet P. High-intensity resistance training improves glycemic control in older patients with type 2 diabetes. Diabetes Care. 2002 Oct;25(10):1729-36.

There are far too many studies to post here how beneficial resistance training is for bone health. The most important being prevention of osteoporosis. Generally speaking resistance training can aid in REVERSING the degradation of bone that happens as we age and become less active.

I find that resistance training is by far the most effective way to ensure that you are able to function in your day-to-day tasks most efficiently (LESS energy required) and MOST IMPORTANTLY preventing injury. It always shocks me when I hear the most recent stats on back injuries (anyone know the most recent?), last I heard it was 4 out of every 5 people will experience some sort of back injury in their lifetime. The key here, is that most could have been PREVENTED with regular exercise.

More interesting information, as reported in the NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/21/health/21real.html

Basically Kelley and Kelley did a "meta-analysis" of data from other papers. Good idea, but it would be great to see more RECENT studies show how beneficial resistance training is for PREVENTING cardiac events.


I am probably "preaching to the choir" here. I would love some ideas and suggestions from other fitness professionals, fitness enthusiasts or even anti-fitness enthusiasts on what we can do to encourage more people to get active!