Another reason to exercise: You’ll keep from catching cold.
You’ve likely heard that from your friendly, local robo-athlete, the guy or gal who works out with machine-like efficiency pert near every day. Well, he/she now has a study out of the Human Performance Laboratory at Appalachian State’s North Carolina Research Campus in Kannapolis — quick breath so we can finish this sentence — to back him/her up.
Sunday, I returned from Colorado where I noticed more people riding bikes, more people hiking and walking than they do here in North Carolina. I also noticed that there was a whole let less of the people there than there is of the folks here. Hmm, I wondered. Is there a connection?
From the research world comes more incentive to stay active — or become so — as you age.
From the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University comes “preliminary evidence” that keeping your brain sharp can help you physically. Einstein researchers took a group of 20 “frail” seniors (age 70 or older who walk less than a meter per second) and divided them into two groups. Ten went about their normal routines, 10 participated in the MindFit brain fitness program: For 45 to 60 minutes a day, three days a week for eight weeks, they carried out tasks that honed their cognitive abilities: focusing, planning, organizing, problem solving. After eight weeks, the MindFit folks walked slightly faster, but their ability to walk and talk at the same time improved significantly.
I originally wrote the following story for The Charlotte Observer, where it ran on Tuesday, July 13. Yesterday, I posted a similar story that ran July 13 in The News & Observer of Raleigh.
Back in the spring, Andy Cole would have been happy to just keep up with his 5-year-old and almost 2-year-old at the local playground, let alone squat-lift 285 pounds and run two miles without stopping.
I originally wrote the following story for The News & Observer, where it ran on Tuesday, July 13. Saturday, I’ll post a similar story that ran July 13 in the Charlotte Observer.
It helped Josh Handest train for a half marathon. It was even more instrumental in getting him into shape to keep up with his preschool sons.