Is Gardening Exercise?
By Michael Boyle, Strength Coach
This article was published on strengthcoach.com
Renowned and well respected strength coach Michael Boyle weighs in on 'trends in fitness' and gives us a lesson on what it means to really exercise.
It's amazing how much marketing affects truth in fitness.
I remember when machine training was all the rage
because it was thought to be safer and more effective.
The problem with this "truth" is that it was a lie or at least
a misconception promoted by the manufactures of machines
and often backed up by industry-funded research.
Nautilus was advertised as a 12-machine, 12-minute trip to
the Promised Land. Today it's Curves.
Tomorrow, who knows?
The Cooper Clinic told us that aerobic exercise was going
to change our lives. Suddenly everyone was a runner.
I think the real beneficiaries of the aerobic training boom
were the doctors and physical therapists who made millions
caring for all those who were injured on the road to the
Promised Land.
The aerobic training boom made us aware of things like
plantar fasciitis, iliotibial band syndrome, and patella-femoral
dysfunction. It gave us RICE (rest, ice, compression, and
elevation) and made sports medicine a household word.
Next came the group exercise phenomenon, the aerobics shoe,
and aerobics classes. More marketing, more injuries. More
money for the doctors and PT's.
Some of these ideas were well-intentioned attempts at wellness
promotion, others flat out lies propagated to make money. In
either case, we still don't get it. The truth is that exercise needs
to be smart and safe. but it also needs to be hard if possible.
Very little in life was ever achieved without hard work. Fitness
is clearly not the exception. Some doctors try to say gardening
qualifies as exercise.
Ask yourself this question. "How is kneeling in dirt exercise?"
Others say walking is great exercise. The truth is that something
is always better than nothing, but why aim so low?
The reality is that we should be exercising as hard as we are
physically able. In fact, the medical professionals themselves
said that in 2002 but the information got little coverage.
The New England Journal of Medicine (Volume 346:852-854
March 14, 2002) published a study and an editorial titled
"Survival of the Fittest" that said "...the peak estimated exercise
capacity achieved during the test (graded exercise treadmill)
was the strongest predictor of the risk of death among patients
with cardiovascular disease and among patients without
cardiovascular disease."
The study went on to say, "Greater fitness results in longer
survival." The study said nothing about duration or frequency, it
only mentioned performance. The people that lived the longest
were not the ones that exercised the most frequently. They were
the ones who lasted the longest on the treadmill test.
The key variable that related to life expectancy was fitness, not
total time or number of days per week. Those that were able
to exercise the hardest lived the longest.
Think about that next time you take a walk or work in
the garden. If that is all you can do, fine. However, healthy
people need hard work.
