AEROBIC FITNESS
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AEROBIC FITNESS |
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Aerobic fitness is the body’s mechanism for
Your level of aerobic fitness is the symptom of the efficient function of all the major body systems which are dedicated to maintaining healthy cellular function, including the respiratory, cardio-vascular, muscular, digestive and the systems involved in elimination.
Aerobic fitness exercise is the body’s ‘turbo-charging’ mechanism designed to make sure that all the trillions of cells in your body are getting the oxygen they need to work efficiently. It is the mechanism for boosting the various elimination systems, including the lymphatic system, the blood, liver, kidneys, bowel, skin and lungs.
The better the cells work the healthier you are.
It trivializes the concept of aerobic fitness to ascribe as it’s main benefit your ability to do more vigorous, muscular, physical activity for longer periods of time. Sure that's what happens, but it is a by product, a symptom of the fact that a range of body systems are working more efficiently, not just your muscles.
We all know that the mind is just another body system and that it is connected to all other body systems; eg there is body system dysfunction (headaches, sore shoulders, high blood pressure, crook guts …) when we get anxious. This is known as the psychosomatic effect.
What is less well known is the somato-psychic effect, where once the body is stimulated into action through an aerobic exercise program there is an impact on the mind – you feel better. An aerobic fitness training program has great benefit in keeping your mind in good shape. In other words, if you want to make the journey from feeling shidouse to feeling absolutely fantastic, you'd be a mug if you didn't include some aerobic training in your lifestyle management program.
If you go to benefits, you can see a list of the many benefits of vigorous physical activity.
THE AEROBIC STANDARD Of all the measures of how well your body is working, your level of aerobic fitness stands out as the most important, much more important than blood pressure. (You can still have normal blood pressure long after the efficiency of the major body systems has decreased.) Your doctor may not know about this test (you could count the number of doctors world-wide on the non-opposable digits of one hand who have taken a patient out the back of the surgery for five minutes and measured how fit they are) so direct him or her to this website.
Do the test at home and take your results to the doctor. Let him or her know exactly how aerotically fit you are.
Spread the word about the 20m run test to your friends.
What is important is that a drop in aerobic fitness is one of the first of the warning signs that general body system function is being compromised. An elevation in blood pressure may not occur for years and then the systems may be so far ‘gone’ that the situation is irretrievable. You’ve got permanent general metabolic dysfunction and you’re destined to be on one or more of the junk pharmaceuticals for the rest of your life.
Having said all that, it’s usually the case that when we talk about aerobic fitness we start talking about our ability do things that require physical effort – whether it’s walking to the end of the street, walking up a couple of flights of stairs, going on a hike, playing a game of tennis… Wouldn’t it be awful to restrict your choices in life because you hadn’t bothered to keep yourself fit enough to do them?
Wouldn't it be a tragedy to get to that stage in life when you're ready to enjoy yourself, and discover that you're buggered. You can't walk up the steps of the cathedrals of Europe, Cambodia or Mexico without wishing you'd brought along your oxygen mask. You can't snorkel on the Great Barrier Reef. You dread one more flight of stairs on the London and New York undergrounds. It takes you a week to recover from a game of golf or a day in the garden. It's so long since you played tennis your Dunlop Maxply racquet still has a transfer of Lew Hoad on its wooden frame.
You've stopped swinging the leg; you're scared you'll have a heart attack.
However, what ever your level of fitness you can get fitter. Age is not an excuse. The older you are the longer you've had to train!
If you're wobbly on the pins, take to the stepper, the bike, the climber, the eliptical or the pool.
You'll feel better, you'll be able to do more and do it for longer. |
