By Kevin Kolodziejski
Cycling provides all sorts of benefits to all sorts of people. The same can be said about all sorts of exercise really.
And what can really get this exerciser out of sorts is when others don’t appreciate it for what it really is: an absolute wonderment. Something that, given proper reflection, produces equal amounts of awe and respect.
If you think I’m giving far too much weight to what’s sometimes the lifting of it, consider what a certified heavyweight, cardiologist Euan Ashley, professor of cardiovascular medicine at Stanford University and the chair of its Department of Medicine, says about exercise on the January 1 PBS broadcast of “News Hour.” That it’s the “most powerful” medical option known to man.
Most of Americans, though, opt out of this prescription plan. Proof of that pudding is in the lack of its eating. Three out of every four adults, according to CDC guidelines, don’t ingest enough of this sweet, albeit sometimes bittersweet, dessert.
So what could keep them from taking a pass on the last course? What News Hour-interviewer William Brangham also calls Ashley’s recent efforts: a “much deeper dive” into exercise.
A Sobering Submersion
I see it as a sobering submersion, and one you should take, too, just to make sure you never become part of the 75 percent who choose to drop the exercise ball rather than work out with it. And to start yours, let it be said that Ashley and the groups working with him have not yet finished all their research, but that he felt confident enough to share a few of their most surprising early findings in the interview.
One of these occurred after researchers had formerly sedentary laboratory rats run on treadmills for eight weeks, took tissue samples from them, and then compared those to ones taken before the rats became exercisers. “The thing we were really surprised to find,” he tells Brangham, is that the rats had turned into “almost different beings.”
Exercise: How Rats Become ‘Almost Different Beings’
Every single tissue sample taken from them after exercise was “completely different than before.” And these changes took the rats’ health “in a very positive direction.”
One of the very positive changes occurred in the rats’ mitochondria, the powerhouse of their cells, and humans’ cells as well, for it produces adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the energy source both use in muscle-fiber contractions. This particular change was so dramatic, Ashely explains, that the images of the rats’ mitochondria after exercise look like “mirror-image” opposites to ones that are diseased.
Ashley offers a theory about how exercise engenders this difference. It stresses the body in a helpful way, one which “prepares our bodies to deal with the stress of everyday life.”
Exercise ‘Buys’ Life
It does this so well, in fact, that Ashley regularly tells his patients “one minute of exercise buys you five minutes of extra life.” It’s why he also tells those feeling time-crunched “you definitely have time for exercise.”
Proof of Its Purchasing Power
He mentions that one benefit of exercise became apparent more than 70 years ago. Based on research done on approximately 31,000 London bus drivers and conductors during a three-year study, it was discovered that bus drivers (who are seated and sedentary) were 70 percent more likely to develop coronary heart disease than conductors (who are upright and moving about). Moreover, the conductors who did develop CHD were not stricken with it as severely, leading to “a smaller early case-fatality and a lower early mortality-rate.”
The PBS interview with Ashley was less than eight minutes, so he doesn’t cite the study in the detail provided above, nor does he reference a self-reported study on leisure-time physical activity published in the August 2022 issue of Circulation that supports the London Transport Workers Study. The self-reporting was done by more than 115,000 adults by filling out the same questionnaire 15 times over 30 years. It clearly shows while any exercise is good, doing more than the recommended minimum is better.
The minimum, according to what the Physical Activity Guidelines Advisory Committee has suggested since 2018, is at least 150 to 300 minutes per week of moderate exercise or 75 to 150 minutes per week of vigorous exercise or an equivalent combination of both. The study found that the participants who did two to four times more than the suggested amount of moderate exercise had a 28 to 38 percent lower risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, as well as 26 to 31 percent lower risk of dying from any disease. Those who did two to four times more than the suggested amount of vigorous exercise benefitted almost as much.
While you might find that last finding a bit disheartening (pardon the pun), it does help dispel the notion that the mega miles many of us ride — or run or swim — make heart problems more likely.
Kevin Kolodziejski began his writing career in earnest in 1989. Since then he’s written a weekly health and fitness column and his articles have appeared in magazines such as “MuscleMag,” “Ironman,” “Vegetarian Times,” and “Bicycle Guide.” He has Bachelor and Masters degrees in English from DeSales and Kutztown Universities.
A competitive cyclist for more than 30 years, Kevin won two Pennsylvania State Time Trial championships in his 30’s, the aptly named Pain Mountain Time Trial 4 out of 5 times in his 40s, two more state TT’s in his 50’s, and the season-long Pennsylvania 40+ BAR championship at 43.