Doing physical exercise is indeed highly recommended for anyone, both for the young and old to maintain the physical condition of their body. Beside to reduce the risk of various diseases, physical exercise can also maintain cognitive function on the elderly. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), those of you who are in the age range of 18-64 years are advised to do physical exercise for at least 150 minutes a week.

As quoted from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) page, there are 4 categories of physical exercise that we can do, namely

• Endurance or aerobic, which is a type of physical activity that can improve your breathing and heart rate. Jogging, relaxing, and dancing are included in this type of physical activity.
• Strength or resistance, which aims to strengthen the overall muscles of the body and improve their function. The exercises included in this type of training including lifting weights or climbing stairs.
• Balance training, which aims to improve our balance especially for the elderly by increasing exercise on the lower body, such as Tai Chi.
• Flexibility training, which aims to stretch the muscles in the body. Yoga is one of the activities you can do to increase our flexibility.

According to experts, any type of exercise can improve the health of the body. However, based on the latest research conducted by St. George’s University, doing static activities (strength training/weightlifting) is known to be more beneficial for heart health when compared to dynamic activities (cycling/walking).

Using data from 2005-2006 registered in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, researchers processed the data of 4,086 participants that divided into two groups, young adults (21-44 years) and elderly (45 years and over). The data includes information about what kind of physical activities they usually do, a history of heart health, high blood pressure, cholesterol to diabetes.

In the study, it was found that 36% of the young adult group and 25% of the elderly group preferred to do static activities such as weight training, while 28% of the young adult group and 21% of the elderly group were reported to prefer to do dynamic activities such as jogging or cycling. Both dynamic and static activities can give the positive effect that can help reduce the risk of cardiovasular diseases by 30-70. However, in the study, it was found that static activities has more effect.  

Text by Anggie Triana
Stock photos from Pixabay

Source(s):

• National Institutes of Health - Exercise and Physical Activity. https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/exercise-physical-activity, December 4, 2018.
• American College of Cardiology - Different Types of Physical Offer Activity Varying Protection Against Heart Disease (2018). ACC - Different Types of Physical Offer Activity Varying Protection Against Heart Disease, December 4, 2018.
• Medical News Today - Strength training is tied to better heart health than aerobics (2018). https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/323732.php, December 4, 2018.