In 1966, a quintet of 20-year-old men,
all healthy and in average physical shape, agreed to a very long-term
study. Their first assignment was to endure 20 days of bed rest. As
expected, the aerobic fitness of these ultimate couch potatoes dropped
like a stone. Next, they went through a period of aerobic training that
completely restored their pre-bed rest levels.
Then came 30 years of normal living,
whereupon they all gained weight and increased their percentage of body
fat. Two men exercised somewhat regularly, while the other three did
not. The decrease in average fitness that occurred during the 30 years
was about the same as during the 20 days of bed rest.
Finally came the real focus of the
study: to determine if an exercise program could reverse some of the
effects of 30 years of steady decline in conditioning due to aging. For
the next six months the 50-year-old fivesome engaged in a supervised
aerobic training program. Two chose walking, two running and one
selected the exercise bike. Intensity and duration increased each week,
and by the end of the program they were working out about 4½ hours each
week.
The program reversed much of the decline
in aerobic power caused by father time. The researchers also found that
gains associated with exercise while the men were 20 were different
from age 50. When in their prime, exercise increased their fitness in
two ways: the heart pumped out more blood and the muscle cells improved
their ability to extract oxygen from the blood. When middle aged,
exercise increased the oxygen-extracting ability but not the
heart-pumping ability.
Another study appearing in the British Medical Journal
adds to the University of Texas findings: It showed that if individuals
engage in relatively intense aerobic exercise on a long-term basis,
they subtract the equivalent of 10 to 12 years from their biological
age. No pill or medical procedure can boast this accomplishment!
