Aerobic Exercise, Strength Training, and the Power of Visualization

Exercise has innumerable benefits. Most studies point to the combination of aerobic exercise and strength training as being more effective than either one alone. The heart, for instance, responds to both, but it structurally adapts in different ways. Many activities that raise the heart rate increase muscle strength as well. Overall, fitness helps in overcoming or preventing many illnesses. We place particular emphasis on aerobic exercise because of its value for the health of the heart and lungs, but all types of exercise are beneficial. Cardiovascular fitness is very important to our health. Numerous studies have shown that the cardio-respiratory fitness that comes from exercise lowers risk of disease and increases our life span at any age. _¹ 

Aerobic Exercise

What counts as aerobic exercise? Types of aerobic exercise can include brisk walking, running, dancing, swimming, anything that raises your heart rate. Even jumping rope and bouncing on a trampoline count. Current recommendations from fitness researchers suggest that able‐bodied people should do some form of aerobic exercise for one hundred and eighty minutes or three hours per week in thirty‐minute increments, and two sessions of strength training, with three bringing even more benefit. _²

If you are unable to complete thirty minutes at a time, don’t worry. Research shows that incremental exercise helps too. High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) alternates short periods of intense exercise with periods of recovery to energize your system. The minutes you spend walking to your car, gardening, climbing stairs, or mopping the floor all add up. Of course, the more vigorously you can do these things, the more benefit you will receive. 3 A huge study of Taiwanese people conducted over eight years found that just fifteen minutes of brisk walking, or five minutes of vigorous exercise such as running, increased life span by three years. _⁴ Some practice is better than none!

Do we need 10,000 steps?

Researchers are also finding that the ubiquitous advice that we should aim to get 10,000 steps per day seems to be unfounded. A study of 17,000 women published in JAMA Internal Medicine concluded that getting only about half that many steps per day is linked to a decreased risk of early death for older women, and that the benefits max out at around 7,500 steps per day. _⁵ So, more isn’t necessarily better. This study joins a growing body of research showing that even short periods of physical activity can come with sizable benefits. “Just do a little bit. If you just do a little bit, you’re better off,” says study coauthor I‐Min Lee, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and epidemiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. “Don’t be discouraged if you don’t meet 10,000 steps.” Researchers aren’t sure where that 10,000‐step daily goal idea originated, but they suspect it was connected to a pedometer made by a Japanese company in the 1960s. The name of the device was Man-po‐kei, which, translated into English, means 10,000‐step meter. Funny how these things work their way into our collective psyches.

The value of believing

Surprisingly, research shows that even believing that what you are doing makes your body stronger can actually help to make it so. For example, Harvard psychologist Ellen Langer, whom many consider to be “the mother of mindfulness,” did a small study with a group of mostly overweight female hotel workers. Despite exceeding the recommended amount of exercise, 67 percent of the women did not consider themselves physically active. Langer predicted that the women’s viewpoints on their physical activity made it difficult for them to lose weight.

To test her hypothesis, Langer gathered half of the women, took their physical measurements, and explained that they were exceeding the amount of exercise recommended by the surgeon general. The other half received no information. After a month, Langer’s team returned to the hotel for reevaluation. The women who had been told they were getting a lot of exercise showed a decrease in systolic blood pressure, weight, and waist‐to‐hip ratio. The other group’s results were insignificant. Langer attributes these physical (and likely psychological) benefits to a simple change in mindset. _⁶ How we perceive what we are doing makes a real difference.

Strength training

Strength training is most important for bone health. Our bones degrade as we age and make us more prone to fractures. Beginning around age thirty, we start to lose about five percent of our muscle mass each decade, accelerating at age seventy, and this contributes to bone loss. There is little evidence that aerobic exercise protects us from this, but weight‐bearing exercise and strength training do, because this kind of exercise makes the bones work harder. _⁷ Our bones are in constant flux, continually being built up and broken down. Strength training puts healthy stress on the bones, triggering repair activity that helps us to maintain and even build denser bones. But this is just the beginning. Benefits of strength training also include reduced risk of heart attack and stroke; lower risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer; and regulation of blood glucose levels.

There are weight loss benefits as well. Strength training increases your basal metabolic rate in two ways: having more muscle mass burns more calories, and the tiny tears in the muscle due to strength training require a relatively large amount of energy to remodel. Surprisingly, the increase in energy demand can last three days after a workout. Last but not least, strength training can even improve brain functioning. _⁸

What kind of strength training is best? The American College of Sports Medicine recommends that adults should exercise all major muscle groups—legs, hips, back, abdomen, chest, shoulders, and arms—at least twice per week. _⁹ At home or at the gym, there are simple ways to do this. Body weight, exercise bands, dumbbells, weight machines, whatever is available to you. Don’t worry about how many reps you should do or how much weight you should lift, just exercise until your muscles are tired. The most important thing is to just do it!

More bang for the buck! Visualization in strength training

Amazingly, mindset affects muscles as well. Just visualizing yourself lifting makes the muscles stronger. A study looking at brain patterns in weightlifters found that the patterns activated when a weightlifter lifted hundreds of pounds were similarly activated when they only imagined lifting. Research has revealed that in some cases, mental practices are almost as effective as physical practice, and that doing both together is more effective than either alone. _¹⁰ For instance, in his study on everyday people, Guang Yue, an exercise psychologist from Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Ohio, compared people who went to the gym with people who carried out virtual workouts in their heads. He found a 30 percent muscle increase in the group who went to the gym. However, the group of participants who conducted the mental exercises increased muscle strength by almost half as much (13.5 percent). This average remained for three months following the mental training. _¹¹ So even if you can’t train physically, it is good to know there is benefit even in visualizing yourself exercising. There are many ways to engage in this practice!

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