photo by axinia

Great news for everyone who has always been feeling there is something wrong with that sport-hype. One has to do sports to stay healthy, fit, and all that… But why does my body oppose it so much (otherwise being quite wise in many questions)?

The fact is one can stay totally healthy without any sports (swimming, jogging and Co.). And actually, the classical idea of sport is a competition, an ambition for more fitness or muscular body.

We definitely need some motion. However the medically needed movement dose is easily reached by some daily activities: 187 min dish-washing or 172 min caring shopping bags home burns same amount of calories as 43 min of intensive swimm training. We do not really need much to keep us fit! - hope the fitness Industry will not kill me at that point.

The famous College Alumni Health Study (1960) says any kind of motion is good, as soon as our pulse speeds up and the breath gets deeper. In a recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Slentz (physiologist at Duke University medical center) and his colleagues looked at whether cardiovascular exercise could increase cholesterol: Simply jogging 20 miles a week elevates the larger HDL by 19 percent. Many other studies show that even a little motion is already quite significant for the human body and there is no need to exaggerate.

And some more recently gained facts:

• even soft swimming has impact on knee joint and intervertibral discs
• regular swimming escalates the Asthma risc to 50% - almost same for running and skiing
• the lungs of children that regulry swimm are similary damaged as smoker-lungs, found out the French researcher
• more that 45 min sport in a week increases miscarriage chances by pregnant women in the frist 17 weeks

The point I wanted to make here is that in the case of fitness and sport we should really have a clear head and listen to the feedback of our body.

Do we really need that or do we let ourself be driven by the marketing and media (again and again!)

LOVE from a very unathletic but healthy and happy

axinia