Dan's Plan

As a follow-up to yesterday’s post, check out this awesome video of women finding movement that they enjoy – namely, playing soccer (or futbol to the rest of the globe).

From their coach: “many of the team members used to walk with sticks before the team started, but have now thrown them away and can run 200 meters without resting.”

How cool is that?

The Upper Paleolithic Periods of the Stone Age and is a prehistoric era from about 40,000-8,000 years ago. During this period humans grouped together in small societies of 25-100 people, and subsisted by gathering plants and hunting or scavenging wild animals.

Researchers have studied activity patterns from  those who lived in that time and found that these hunter-gatherers engaged in several days of fairly intensive physical activity followed by days of rest and light activity. Men would hunt for 1-4 days consecutively each week and women gathered every 2-3 days. Other movement types identified include: tool making, butchering, food preparation, carrying firewood and water, and moving to new campsites. Interesting, dances that lasted hours, were identified as a major recreational activity in many cultures! Does anyone else think that’s really cool like I do?!?!

Why is this important? We still possess late Paleolithic, pre-agricultural hunter-gatherer genes. Therefore, we’ve inherited genes for physical activity, as physical activity was necessary for our ancestor’s survival. However, in our society where food is abundant, for many, movement is no longer obligatory for survival and this creates problems.

A sedentary lifestyle disrupts how our cells speak to each other which affects the types of proteins our genes produce. Thus, physical INACTIVITY becomes an initiating factor in the molecular mechanisms of disease, which is likely the reason why being sedentary is associated with a higher incidence of chronic conditions. In fact, physical inactivity affects at least 20 of the most chronic and deadly medical disorders as these conditions share common genetic inheritances that were supported by physical activity. When physical activity diminished, chronic health conditions occurred.

AN INCOMPLETE LIST OF PROBLEMS ASSOCIATED WITH INACTIVITY:

Have you moved today?

Citation: Booth, 2002. J Appl Physiol

There is an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal today about a Stanford study that showed that phone calls – even recorded calls from a machine – helped people exercise more than when they did not receive any reminders or encouragement.

One thing that is interesting about the article is that it acknowledges that although having a workout partner or exercise buddy can increase the likelihood of exercising, not everyone likes to exercise with someone else. Some people would rather exercise alone or not have to coordinate schedules with someone else. What is interesting about this study is that it shows that you can (and perhaps should) have an effective workout partner with whom you do not actually exercise!

So, one thing we can all do is to formulate our movement goals and make them known to at least one other person – your new workout partner. You don’t have to exercise with this person, but you should commit to checking in with each other on a regular basis to see how things are going. Important points from the study are that the conversations should remain positive – congratulations on exercising and questions about how to make up missed workouts – scolding is not necessary. This approach greatly increases the number and type of people that you can have as workout partners!

Closing quotes from the article:
“You don’t want to let your team members down,” says Angel Patterson-Tetuan, a registered nurse who recently completed Walk Kansas  for her second consecutive year. She credits the program with helping  her lose 40 pounds and develop a year-round exercise regime. “I  used to be able to tell you what was on television every night,” says  Mrs. Patterson-Tetuan, a 42-year-old mother of three. “Now I have no idea. I’m up and moving, and so are my children.”

And that makes me smile.