Minutes a Week - Strength for Life TM
Slow Exercise Is Better For Menopausal Women
Than Fast Exercise
ScienceDaily (July 8, 2008) It's an inevitable truth: as we get older, our muscles deteriorate and we become weaker. Not only can this be an immensely frustrating change, but it can also have many other, more serious implications. We become clumsier and begin to have more falls, often resulting in broken bones or even more severe injuries. There is wide interest in this phenomenon, but to date, the majority of research has focused on therapies for older patients with advanced symptoms. Now one study, led by Dr Alexandra Sänger from the University of Salzburg, is taking a new approach: scientists are examining the effects of different exercise regimes in menopausal women, with the aim of developing new strategies for delaying and reducing the initial onset of age related muscle deterioration. Results will be presented on Monday 7th July at the Society for Experimental Biology's Annual Meeting in Marseille [Poster Session A5].
Dr Sänger's research group has investigated two particular methods of physical training. Hypertrophy resistance training is a traditional approach designed to induce muscle growth whereas 'SuperSlow®' is a more recently devised system which involves much slower movement and fewer repetitions of exercises, and was originally introduced especially for beginners and for rehabilitation.
"Our results indicate that both methods increase muscle mass at the expense of connective and fatty tissue, but contrary to expectations, the SuperSlow® method appears to have the greatest effect,"
reveals Dr Sänger. "These findings will be used to design specific exercise programmes for everyday use to reduce the risk of injury and thus significantly contribute to a better quality of life in old age."
The study focused on groups of menopausal women aged 45-55 years, the age group in which muscle deterioration first starts to become apparent. Groups undertook supervised regimes over 12 weeks, based on each of the training methods. To see what effect the exercise had, thigh muscle biopsies were taken at the beginning and end of the regimes, and microscopically analyzed to look for changes in the ratio of muscle to fatty and connective tissue, the blood supply to the muscle, and particularly for differences in the muscle cells themselves. "The results of our experiments have significantly improved our understanding of how muscles respond to different forms of exercise," asserts Dr Sänger.
"We believe that the changes that this new insight can bring to current training systems will have a considerable effect on the lives of both menopausal and older women," she concludes."
SuperSlowTM is a trademarked name for the training method that I use at Precision Exercise. I've known for many years that this the most efficient, effective, and safest way to strengthen your body and its gratifying to see that science is confirming that.
The following letter was in response to a Mississippi newspaper wherein, the type training we do (Super Slow) was criticized by the author as too good to be true.
Good Morning, J.C.,
I happened to see your column from September 20th in the Clarion-Ledger on SuperSlow. I’m glad you wrote about it, and I know exactly how you feel, because I felt the same way until about three years ago.
For years, I and my colleagues have been telling our patients to walk, run, or ride 30 minutes a session, and for 3-5 times a week. That was almost religious dogma in the cardiology world. And for 20 years I ran 10 miles, four times a week.
But many of us made the observation that on of the best ways to measure objectively the aerobic benefits of endurance exercise was the HDL (the so called “good” cholesterol) level and that these activities usually had very little effect on the HDL. We here are now following 29 patients on this high-intensity protocol (17 minutes in the gym every 5th day) and 28 of 29 patients have more than doubled their HDL’s, mostly from the low 20’s to the mid/high 50’s. (Show this to your doctor and see if he knows of any drug or activity that can double an HDL!)
Additionally, in the post-menopausal women in the group, they are averaging a 1%increase in their bone mineral density MONTHLY. (Show this also to your doctor and ask him how this compares to Fosamax or Miacaincin.)
A patient of mine who consistently ran 20 miles, three times a week (60 miles a week-how much more “aerobic” can you get?!) had an average HDL of 36-38. For the past year, on only the program described above, his HDL averages 56-59. (OK, I guess you better show that one to your doctor also!)
I believe we are coming around to the conclusion that what was recommended for years by the medical community (30 minutes “aerobic exercise” 3-5 times a week, getting the hear rate up to 80% max for age, etc) has been inadequate and of too low an intensity level. When an activity is of sufficient intensity, and not of certain duration or repeated a certain number of times, then the body will initiate a total-body response (metabolic, HDL, glucose tolerance, blood pressure, bone mineral density, muscular strengthening, immune competency, et.) It appears that if this level of intensity is never reached, the beneficial response by the body never occurs, or is at least blunted.
Also, it stands to reason that if something is done that is very intense; it can’t be done for very long, or very often. Therefore, we could walk on a treadmill for and hour, and that daily, without much problem (or gain!). But an activity that is very intense, by necessity, can be done only briefly, and infrequently (to give the body time to recover and then overcompensate, which means grow). The SuperSlow method is only a means to an end, and that end is to provide exercise to the body that is intense enough to stimulate the body to make its own internal improvements.
I didn’t mean for my two cents worth to be this long, but I thought you might like an update on how this is all working out in the real world. And I would encourage you to try a session sometime – after all, we all need to keep our bodies under warranty!
Philip Alexander, M.D.
Chief of Medical Staff, College Station Medical Center
Faculty, Texas A&M University College of Medicine
Six minutes of exercise a week "is as good as six hours."
By Peter Zimonjic
Just six minutes of intense exercise a week does as much to improve a person's fitness as a regime of six hours, according to a study.
Moderately healthy men and women could cut their workouts from two hours a day, three times a week, to just two minutes a day and still achieve the same results, claim medical researchers.
The two-minute workout requires cycling furiously on a stationary bike in four 30-second bursts. Professor Martin Gibala, the author of the study, said: "The whole excuse that 'I don't have enough time to exercise' is directly challenged by these findings. This has the potential to change the way we think about keeping fit.
"We have shown that a person can get the same benefits in fitness and health in a much shorter period if they are willing to endure the discomfort of high-intensity activity."
The study, published in this month's Journal of Applied Physiology, involved 23 men and women aged between 25 and 35 who were tested to see how long it took them to cycle 18.6 miles. The subjects, who all did some form of regular moderate exercise, were then given varying exercise programs three times a week.
The first group cycled for two hours a day at a moderate pace. The second group biked harder for 10 minutes a day in 60-second bursts. The last group cycled at an intense sprint for two minutes in 30-second bursts, with four minutes of rest in between each sprint.
At the end of the two weeks each of the three groups was asked to repeat the 18.6 mile cycling test. Every subject was found to have improved to the same degree. Further tests showed that the rate at which the subjects' muscles were able to absorb oxygen also improved to the same level.
The key findings in terms of overall health showed that the two-minute workout produced the same muscle enzymes - essential for the prevention of type 2 diabetes - as riding 10 times as long. That is significant in the light of growing levels of unfitness. Obesity has trebled in Britain since 1982, leading to a rise in type 2 diabetes. The Department of Health estimates that unfit Britons cost the country £2 billion a year in the treatment of heart disease and other related illnesses.
Prof Gibala, of the health department of McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, said: "We thought there would be benefits but we did not expect them to be this obvious. It shows how effective short intense exercise can be."
