Which Comes First, Cardio or Weights_ - Alex Hutchinson [69]
In this context, motivation seems crucial to success. Studies of elite masters athletes by University of Ottawa researcher Bradley Young and his colleagues have identified a complex mix of personal and social factors that make some people more likely to continue training at a high level into their 50s and beyond. The personal factors are mostly what you’d expect: at the top of the list is enjoyment of the sport, which is cited by more than half of elite older athletes as a reason to train. Close behind is the sense of personal challenge, followed by improved fitness and health. Surprisingly, the social factors mix positive reinforcement (from family, training partners, and the wider community) with more negative pressure (the feeling, for instance, that stopping training would make you a quitter).
Motivation is ultimately very personal, so there’s no universal formula for maintaining your enthusiasm. But it’s important to understand how the people around you can affect your outlook and to make sure that your family and friends are supportive and understand the benefits of your exercise routine. As researchers studying three decades of data from the Framingham Heart Study have found, health and exercise habits are highly contagious. And the most powerful source of social pressure, Young’s research shows, is your spouse—a result that wouldn’t surprise Whitlock, who discovered his calling as a masters runner when he was 40, after a 15-year hiatus, at the urging of his wife.
What are the pros and cons of exercising in water?
One of the classic problems with exercise is that those who most need its health benefits sometimes have the greatest difficulty doing it. If you have osteoarthritis, your joints hurt; if you’re battling obesity, the impact forces will put you at risk of injury; if you’re a senior, you could break bones in a fall. A common solution to this problem is to exercise in the water, often in the form of water aerobics or aquafit group classes. There’s no doubt that this lower-impact approach helps reduce some of the risks of exercise for at-risk groups, but it’s only recently that researchers have started to ask whether it really provides the same benefits as land-based workouts.
One key difference between water aerobics and swimming stems from the fact that you’re standing vertically in the water, rather than floating horizontally. Since water pressure underwater is greater than it is near the surface, the pressure exerted on your feet will be greater than it is on your chest. As a result, blood is pushed back from your extremities toward your heart with less effort than usual. This means that your heart rate will be lower at a given level of effort—meaning you have to work harder to get the equivalent cardiovascular workout that you’d get on land.
Nonetheless, a number of studies have found that water-based exercise has valuable benefits, particularly for groups with special needs. For example, a 2009 study found that a four-week aquatic exercise program consisting of a mix of aerobic, stretching, and strengthening exercise produced greater improvements in patients with lower-back pain than a comparable four-week program on land. The researchers speculated that water pressure and temperature reduced pain signals during exercise, and buoyancy reduced stress on joints and muscles, enabling a greater range of motion.
Several studies have explored aquatic exercise for patients with hip and knee osteoarthritis. A review of these studies in 2009 concluded that it likely produced short-term benefits, though further research is required to determine whether the benefits persist in the long term. More generally, older adults often face a combination of different challenges—aching joints, poor balance, weak bones—that make water a more attractive