Why Time Magazine Has It Wrong!

Ever feel like you are hearing conflicting information about exercise and nutrition? The news says one thing, you read a completely different thing, and ultimately you’re still left confused? Here’s the simple answer. Science does not have all the answers, so there are times when some information becomes outdated by newer information. However, the larger issue is based on who is reporting this information. Let’s look at one example….

Time magazine’s article “Why You Don’t Have To Exercise Everyday” http://time.com/4626519/exercise-every-day-health-benefits/ , leads the reader to believe that doing your cardio on the weekends is all you need. They reference a study, and conclude that there’s no statistical difference in the contracting of chronic diseases and mortality between those who go throughout the week and those who go only on the weekends.

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Here’s the problem with that assessment. The study takes into consideration only the “cardio” element of exercise, however exercise falls into, two buckets. There’s the cardio bucket, and the resistance training bucket. This study makes no reference to resistance training.

So does this mean there’s no health benefit to resistance training? No! What it means is the study was designed to look at mortality associated with activity (cardiovascular only). However, what they didn't look at was impact of resistance training and quality of life. This is a big deal! Here's why: If done properly resistance exercise is beneficial in that it:

• Maintains or increases bone density (prevent osteopenia)
• Maintains muscle mass (prevent sarcopenia)
• Helps reduce blood pressure, and cholesterol
• Maintains strength, which helps reduce stress on the heart when lifting heavier objects
• Helps regulate and maintain hormonal production of testosterone in men (which in the absence of resistance exercise can drop by 1% per year after the age of 40)
• Improves functional strength
• Helps prevent and reduce the symptoms of arthritis

In fact when they speak of the “150 minutes of moderate activity” recommended, they do not mention that Americans are recommended to perform a minimum of two sessions of resistance exercise for each major muscle group per week. The study most likely does not mention it, because studies need to be very specific in order to control the variables. The writer does not mention it most likely because the writer has no background in exercise and does not know there’s a national recommendation/benefits for resistance exercise.

In a Nutshell:

Yes you reduce your mortality if you do 150 minutes of moderate cardio activity just on the weekends. However remember:

• Despite the claim there's no difference of doing it all on the weekend verse doing it throughout the week, the numbers reported by the study showed that exercising throughout the week does in fact yield additional benefit over just doing it on the weekend. And...
• To get the benefits listed above you need to do a minimum of two sessions of resistance training in addition to the 150 minutes of (cardio) activity.

Reference:

American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), retrieved from:  https://www.acsm.org/docs/brochures/resistance-training.pdf

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