Physiotherapist advises how to stay healthy for as long as possible: combine strength with endurance when exercising

Healthin 2024 May 4 20:15

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Etaplius.ltSource: Press release

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Decreased physical activity is associated with the occurrence of most modern chronic diseases, so moving and exercising is necessary for us at any age. Forgotten physical activity usually leads to diseases of the cardiovascular system, diabetes, obesity.

“Physical activity has a therapeutic effect on a person. Sports and an active lifestyle, such as walking, exercising, cycling, and walks can both help prevent chronic diseases and improve health once they do occur. Sport reduces the risk of getting sick even for those physically active people who have a genetic predisposition to various diseases. In general, the more active a person is, the longer they live,” says physiotherapist Tomas Linksmuolis.

He notes that when it comes to sports, some people prefer endurance and others prefer strength, but we all need to develop both strength and endurance.

“Strength athletes also need endurance training to maintain their cardiovascular health. And those involved in endurance sports need strength training, as it makes the body more resistant to injury. Bone density, tendons, and muscle resistance depend on strength training. This becomes especially relevant at an older age,” says the physiotherapist.

Sports are not just muscles

As an example of what happens when this rule is not followed, T. Linksmuolis gives bodybuilders, because paying too much attention to the muscles and forgetting the vascular system can lead to a heart attack. This happens when the cardiovascular system is not trained – the capacity of the cardiovascular system is very low, and as a result, even a small amount of physical exertion can put such a heavy load on the heart that it may not be able to withstand it.

According to him, sometimes even a muscular man climbs the stairs completely out of breath, which means that the large muscle mass is difficult for his heart to supply.

“It should not be that way. A good example should be the residents of the Nordic countries, who live longer and get sick less often because they are active – they walk a lot, ride bicycles, and spend time in the fresh air. “Compared to the rest of the world, northerners can boast of great endurance even in their old age,” notes T. Linksmuolis.

He is seconded by Indrė Veličkienė, head of the Product and Development Department of PZU Lietuva gyvybės draudimas.

According to her, in order to live a quality life, to get sick less, movement is necessary. It is noticed that every year more and more young people of working age fall ill with various chronic diseases, which are often caused by too little physical activity.

“Customers are increasingly interested in not only injury but also critical illness insurance. We notice that cardiovascular diseases are an increasingly common companion not only in old age. Insurance can allow you to focus on treatment rather than additional costs. Our initiated survey of society’s priorities showed that the three biggest priorities of Lithuanians are family, health and material well-being, and with additional income, as many as 38 percent. respondents would use them specifically for improving health,” says I. Veličkienė.

Every day – 8 thousand. steps

According to physiotherapist T. Linksmuolis, in order to train the cardiovascular system, it is enough to walk 8,000 km per day. steps. And if you also do exercise in addition to your daily walk, it will be great.

“The goals of exercise are twofold: one is to maintain mobility, mobility of the joints and thus the functionality of the body, and the second is to maintain strength. For these goals, it is possible to do either a daily small exercise, or two larger training sessions per week are enough. Most of the time, it is recommended to do two training sessions a week and to walk 8,000 km on other days. steps,” he advises.

In order to exercise the whole body, says T. Linksmuolis, it is recommended to do movements from five different categories. The first category of movement is squat-type movements, where most of the work falls on the knees, such as squats, lunges. These movements mainly develop strength through the knee joint.

The second category is movements that stress the hip joint – bending-type movements. It can be lifting some weight off the ground, leaning on one leg, called a “swallow”.

A third type of movement is a push-type movement, such as push-ups. The fourth category is pulling-type movements – it can be pull-ups, horizontal stretching of the rubber towards yourself. And the last type category includes movements that load the core of the body. This is a “board” (“plank”) or other variations of it.

“The most important thing here is that we do not bend the lumbar part of the body, load it in a stable position and do not move it. And that’s all these groups of five exercises should take about 15 minutes every day. They can be alternated each day, but at least 30 repetitions of one exercise must be done for each category. While training, you should try to fully use your joints – fully extend, bend, squat, stand up fully to maintain body mobility,” emphasizes the physiotherapist.

In order to develop strength qualities, points out T. Linksmuolis, exercise does not have to be easy.

“When we do movements to strengthen the body, we need to be at least hard enough to score an 8 out of 10 on our personal difficulty scale. A common mistake people make when they set a goal to get stronger is that they never exercise hard, and as a result, they never get stronger. And it should be so hard that you don’t want to repeat the next exercise – that’s when you’ll get the most benefit,” he says.

By the way, he advises to breathe only through the nose all the time while training. Breathing through the nose changes both mechanical and biochemical processes.

“When breathing through the nose, we manage our body much more efficiently – our stabilizing system, gas exchange, and oxygen transport work better. When we exercise enough and do it properly, the chance of suffering from chronic diseases is greatly reduced,” the interviewer assures.

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