There's been numerous (human and animal) studies showing benefits of strength training for elderly. Ergo-log covers [1] those [2] all [3] the time [4].
Then there's evidence [5] suggesting that higher calorie burning is directly associated with reduced death rate.
And a specific quote on muscle mass:
"A recent theory suggests that developed muscle mass results in considerable emissions of anti-inflammatory and life-extending signal substances. That's why muscular strength is believed to protect against cancer and why strong men are thought to live longer."
(links to studies confirming those claims are in the article)
The thing about running (if we're talking about traditional jogging) is that it does poor job at burning calories. It's a movement that becomes "familiar" very quick (and so becomes easier, according to Principle of Adaptation) and the one in which it's difficult to increase intensity. You also don't develop muscle mass when jogging, which would contribute to higher metabolic rate and reduced chance of injury.
Everything suggests that strength training (whether it's bodyweight, yoga, suspension trainer, or barbells and kettlebells) combined with proper supplementation is the best bang for your buck.
[1] http://www.ergo-log.com/over-seventies-benefit-more-from-pow...
[2] http://www.ergo-log.com/combination-strength-training-green-...
[3] http://www.ergo-log.com/over-nineties-still-react-to-strengt...
There was another study that showed that people who take up mixed martial arts in their late 40s are healthier than people of the same age who only walk [1]. No word on whether genetics plays a role.
Kata practicing is an exercise in explosive power over long period (several minutes), thus strength endurance training.
All MA training I attended interspersed action with rest. Thus interval training.
7 years later he died of a heart attack while jogging at the age of 52.
His death doesn't mean running is a bad idea - a single anecdote is statistically insignificant - but perhaps it can remind us that nothing we do can guarantee a long and healthy life.
All too often we take a mildly correlated statistic, give it a hand-wavy air of "science", and then pronounce it as a set-in-stone moral absolute. How much of the received wisdom about healthy lifestyles that you were taught has been shown to be completely wrong? I don't doubt that in 3 years there will be another New York times article, demonstrating why running is actually terrible for you, and you should never do it no matter what age you are.
Growing up in a secular society ancient religions can seem awful strange: why did people worship stone statues and sacrifice to them? Did they really believe all that effort did anything?
But perhaps our modern obsession with "healthiness" reflects the same underlying human motivation: incapable of accepting the reality of our own deaths we grasp at anything to try and give ourselves the illusion of control. Is eating an organic strawberry in the hopes of living longer really any different than performing a ritualistic dance in the hopes of bringing rain?
Truth is, you aren't much without it. Stephen Hawkins might be able to think and write wonderful essays while occupying a severely diminished body, but you might not. I've seen people sinking into their growing disabilities due to lack of exercise, and I myself suffered from physical traumas (severe back pain, hernia), which seriously impacted my psychological stability and self-confidence.
Take care of your body, it will take care of you. Haruki Murakami has a wonderful book about body and mind, and their equilibrium, called What I Talk About When I Talk About Running [1], I very much recommend it.
[1] http://www.amazon.ca/What-Talk-About-When-Running/dp/0385681...
You're right that nothing we can do will guarantee a long and healthy life. If nothing else, we could be hit by a drunk or texting driver while crossing the street. So enjoy the strawberry for the taste.
Also, not all religious people do ritualistic rain dances. Newton, Godel etc were all completely rational creatures.
I have a feeling that you are just saying "these grapes are sour".
No matter how sore you feel things like yoga, meditation, good living and exercise contribute to better quality of life and longer lifespans. Just go to scholar.google.com and spend some time researching.
> His death doesn't mean running is a bad idea - a single anecdote is statistically insignificant - but perhaps it can remind us that nothing we do can guarantee a long and healthy life.
Or one could see it this way: His father had a heart attack at 35 and died of another heart attack at 42. Jim Fixx, who had a genetic condition, was a heavy smoker until age 36, etc., might very well have bought himself an extra ten years or so.
I don't think anybody who works out is under the assumption that they will live to be 130+ years old.
We're all very well aware of babies with Cancer these days. Anything can happen.
But one thing's for certain, being active certainly prolongs life. That much I think we can all be sure of at this point.
How many true couch potatoes do you know that have made it past the ripe old age of 90? 80 even?
what we can be sure of is that being active improves the quality of life. Hell is not being able to move.
you forgot to say "on average" here.
I don't know, do you really believe there is anything that suggests mathematics exists in reality outside of the maintenance of symbols, structure, and meaning in the mind of man?
Some things exist to teach patterns, to maintain a style of thinking. There are tons of things we don't understand about culture socially - in maintaining peace, individuality AND unity with ourselves as individuals and ourselves in society, that might have been intelligently dealt with in a very real way in cultures you consider primitive, intelligible, irrational, unscientific, archaic, and non-secular.
You can't judge a book by it's cover, so to speak. The superficial observation of ritual does not mean it serves no purpose. The meaning of things change over time, as these things are interpreted and understood by different cultures that come from different backgrounds with different ways of representing and interpreting information about the world. Math does not always represent what it says it represents. Neither do dancing statues. There are certainly TONS of things people rely on, things they assume about how existence functions, that we can't even begin to touch the tip of, because we are blinded by the complexity of our own minds.
Running can and will mess with your endocrine system.
Except advances in biotech...or at least I'm drastically hoping so.
Virtually none of it.
>I don't doubt that in 3 years there will be another New York times article, demonstrating why running is actually terrible for you, and you should never do it no matter what age you are.
I do doubt that. I doubt it very much.
>Is eating an organic strawberry in the hopes of living longer really any different than performing a ritualistic dance in the hopes of bringing rain?
That seems like really desperately grasping at ways to dismiss things you don't like. Exercise is good, even if you don't want it to be.
What? Milk? Multi-vitamins? Stretching? This stuff is discussed heavily; I do not know enough about these things to weigh in on validity, but if nothing else, these discussions might be very symptomatic.
Conclusion from the paper:
Running mitigates the age-related deterioration of walking
economy whereas walking for exercise appears to have
minimal effect on the age-related deterioration in walking
economy.Particularly the 'idea of getting up from the floor without use of arms' made me think of certain simple motions that are hard for me. There is a Korean buddhist practice of 108 bows - I recently tried and got to about 25. (not just Korean - I should have said I learned it in a Korean context)
I am disturbed by the idea that there will come a day where I cant do "x" anymore, where x is running, drinking guinness or some other such activity.
Recently bought a block of training sessions at a gym and discovered stretching with the aid of hard plastic tubes or rollers that help stretch out areas of the body that are a bit hard to stretch otherwise. Hip flexors, trapezius (sp?), etc. This has greatly improved my mobility and has helped me do things which were hard to do before (shoulder presses, running) without pain.
Reading this article it made me think of how walking alone might not stretch out muscles in the same way as running (or swimming, rowing, etc).
"But researchers and older people themselves also have noted that walking ability tends to decline with age. Older people whose primary exercise is walking often start walking more slowly and with greater difficulty as the years pass, fatiguing more easily."
They don't explicitly talk about flexibilty and running but some form of stretching is somewhat implied. It might be interesting to see those possible correlations.
And I thought of the octo- (and maybe nono-) genarian Koreans who would briskly walk by me on the small mountains in Seoul on their way to a temple to throw down a few bows...
http://phraktured.net/molding-mobility.html
I do a full round of the mobility work (15 reps and not the warmup section) every morning within 15 minutes of getting out of bed. It has done wonders for my mobility, and my attitude in the morning (not a morning person and doing this makes me less grumpy).
And the world record holder for a pole vault (90+ years of age): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pX9h5PVNGaY
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2014/11/29/inspiration-na...
Barefoot running, and less padded shoes, promote landing on the balls of your feet (as otherwise it's incredibly painful!). Landing on the balls of your feet allows your foot to reduce the force that gets shot up the leg.
edit: An excellent video showing the subtleties of perfect form: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTMgIViinuQ
http://www.npr.org/2011/03/28/134861448/put-those-shoes-on-r...
For example, keeping joints active with weight bearing exercise reduces the likelihood of developing arthritis. As other comments have mentioned, a common problem is overtraining, and especially starting out too fast. Patience is required to build up the strength and technique required to maximise benefits while minimising the risk of injury.
I suspect it's a matter of cross-training, of trying to do some compensating weight training, and luck.
A self-reported group of old runners can apparently walk more efficiently than a self-reported group of old walkers...but the runners were fit enough to run and sustain running to begin with!!
So older people who were fit enough to sustainably run for 6+ months were fitter than older folks who (were possibly not as fit) but choose to walk?
Horrible study...randomly assign fit older people to one or other group, let them run or walk for 6+ months - measure. Reverse the groups again measure.
The real thing you want to control for is the health of the runners and the walkers at the time the runners started running.
Can anyone in the know comment on how realistic or significant it is for a study of this nature to reach any kind of conclusion from a sample size of 30?
not to mention the bowel issues
The book 'Which comes first, cardio or weights' from A. Hutchinson offers one hypothesis in which running might protect the knees: by limiting weight gain with advancing age. Less weight means less stress on the joints.
[0] http://www.mayoclinic.org/runners-diarrhea/expert-answers/fa...