Regular, Life-long Exercise: It seems intuition was right all along!

Allan MorrisonUncategorized

We at ScuttleBugs are long-time firm believers in physical activity starting at a young age. Physical activity – just being active, sport can always come later- as part of a child’s early life obviously has many immediate benefits - not to mention it’s fun. But as importantly, if the child can enjoy being active, they can, as they grow older, build activity into their lives.
Sooner or later the child will have access to genuine sports - team or individual – and if they have already been active they will surely find a wide range of sports or activities they can enjoy. Many of which, including very active sports, can be enjoyed deep into old age. You doubt me? Walking soccer anyone? Tennis? Badminton? Downhill or X-country skiing? Softball? Field or ice hockey? Swimming? Ballet? Cycling? Yoga? Rugby? Running? Hiking? And so many more. All can help girls and boys to enjoy a long, active and healthy life. Friendships made through sports along the way are a true bonus.
We believe it all starts from getting that enjoyment, freedom and just feel-good of running around and being active. It’s part of the reason we have our large, safe and enclosed outdoor playground: To help launch our kids on a healthy, long, lifetime of activity.

It’s why, as part of our extra-curricular options and in addition to our music and dance classes, we have weekly visits from Amazing Athletes and Tuff Tumblers. Our view? Stay active; exercise - even strenuously; do sports - whether team or individual, competitive or not.

And now it seems we are starting to be able to prove what seems to be pretty intuitive:

 

An August 2018 study by Ball State University in Indiana, points out that people who exercise regularly throughout their lives, have the same aerobic capacity even into their 70’s, 80’s as someone half their age. The study, which included older men and women who only started regular exercise in the 1970’s, noted that their muscles are indistinguishable in many ways from those of healthy 25-year-olds.

The study looked at a random selection of 21 men (70-72 years old) and 7 women (74-76 years old) who exercised regularly for the past nearly 50 years and compared them to healthy non-exercisers in the same age range and a third group of people 20-30 years old and who are active. The study focused on the cardiovascular systems and muscles.

As expected the study showed the aerobic capacity in the youngest group was greater than both older groups. But the study group (21 men, 7 women) possessed an aerobic capacity some 40% greater than their same-aged non-exercising peers. Researchers placed the study group aerobic capacity as equivalent to adults some 30 years younger.

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The effect on muscles was even more dramatic where the study showed the muscles of the exercising groups, young and elderly, resembling each other! Unsurprisingly, both were far ahead of the non-exercising group.

This study, while providing a number of very positive indicators, will need future supporting studies to determine more exactly the causes of such positive benefits but, says Dr. Scott Trappe, the director of the Human Performance Laboratory at Ball State, “Together, these findings about muscular and cardiovascular health in active older people suggest that what we now consider to be normal physical deterioration with aging “may not be normal or inevitable.” 

Thank you Ball State! We are with you! Can’t wait to see your next studies.

References:

Journal of Applied Physiology

NY Times