Exercise & Fitness Archive

Boosting your fitness level may help decrease the symptoms of the most common heart rhythm disorder, according to a study published online June 22 by the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. The disorder—atrial fibrillation, or afib—causes an irregular, rapid heartbeat that can lead to shortness of breath, dizziness, and fainting.

The study included 308 people with afib who were also overweight or obese, a condition that raises the risk of afib. The participants answered questions about their afib symptoms and underwent tests to determine their fitness levels, which were described in metabolic equivalents, or METs. (METs measure your level of exertion and are based on how much oxy-gen your body uses during activities; sitting still is 1 MET, and brisk walking is 3.)

Atrial fibrillation (AF)—in which the upper chambers of the heart contract weakly and rapidly—is associated with an increased risk of stroke and heart failure. Although exercise has been suggested as a preventive strategy, there aren't enough data to indicate whether it prevents AF in women.

To shed more light on the topic, Swedish researchers in 1997 asked about 40,000 women over 50 how much time they had spent exercising throughout their lives. The researchers then tracked the women for 12 years and noted that 2,915 (about 7%) had developed AF. They found that the risk of AF fell steadily with increasing activity. The women who exercised the most—more than four hours a week—were 15% less likely to have developed AF than those who exercised the least (less than one hour a week). Those who walked or biked 40 minutes or more a day had a 20% lower risk than those who rarely did either. The results were reported online by the British journal Heart on May 27, 2015.

Study after study has shown that Americans don’t get enough activity. In fact, many of us don’t even get our recommended 10,000 steps a day. Could pedometers or digital fitness trackers help? Pedometers are simple gadgets that measure how many steps you take. Digital fitness trackers also measure the pace, distance, duration, and intensity of your activity, and often have accompanying web applications that can evaluate and even graph this information. In a small study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, researchers gave either a standard pedometer or a Fitbit brand digital fitness tracker to 51 overweight postmenopausal women who had been getting about 33 minutes per week of moderate to vigorous physical activity. The pedometer group did not have any significant change to their activity levels. But the fitness tracker group increased their physical activity by an additional 38 minutes per week.

New study findings provide better guidance to men about treatment options for spinal stenosis.

Spinal stenosis, a progressive narrowing of the space around the lower (lumbar) spinal nerves, is a common cause of back pain and disability in men over age 65. When anti-inflammatory medications and injections fail, stenosis sufferers start looking for other solutions. A surgical procedure called decompression can improve things temporarily, but like any back surgery, it comes with risks.

It helps build cardiovascular fitness with shorter workouts.

Have you heard about interval training but aren't sure how it works and whether it's right for you? Interval training simply means alternating between short bursts of intense exercise and brief periods of rest (or a different, less-intense activity). The payoff is improved cardiovascular fitness.

A randomized controlled trial of Finnish women over 70 has demonstrated that regular exercise can significantly reduce the risk of serious injury from a fall. Researchers from Tampere University studied 370 women who had fallen during the previous year. They were randomly divided into two groups. One group of 187 participated in classes in which they learned exercises to increase strength, balance, and agility. They attended exercise class twice a week for a year and once a week the next year. They exercised at home on the days they weren't in class. The women in the control group continued their normal routines. All the women kept daily diaries in which they noted whether they had fallen, and if so, the type of injury they sustained and whether they required medical attention. They mailed their diaries to the researchers every month.

At the end of the period, the number of falls was about the same in both groups: 140 in the exercise group and 141 in the control group. The consequences of those falls, though, differed noticeably between the groups: women in the exercise group had 20 falls requiring medical attention, including eight fractures and six head injuries. That compared with 39 such falls in the control group, involving 14 fractures and 12 head injuries.

Competition is great for older adults, but don't skip training camp before your season starts.

Tai chi appears to have positive effects on a wide range of thinking skills in healthy adults, such as attention, learning, memory, and perception.

Research suggests benefits for a range of cardiovascular conditions.

Q . Can you explain exactly what "ejection fraction" means? And is there any way to increase it?

A. Ejection fraction refers to the volume of blood that's pumped out of the heart's left ventricle each time it contracts. Contrary to what many people believe, a normal ejection fraction is not 100%. Even a healthy heart pumps out only about half to two-thirds of the volume of blood in the chamber in one heartbeat. So a normal ejection fraction lies somewhere in the range of 55% to 65%.