Nice to see you, Warrior. Today I’ve got the final installment in my Value Add Series. You can check out last month’s post here. This should have been the easiest of the series to write as we can all probably list five things that movement adds to our Physical Health. But it was actually difficult because I wanted to make sure that these value adds are not conflated with weight loss.
That was the whole point of the series, to show what regular movement can add to your life. We are so busy talking about weight loss, weight control, weight management and how to use exercise as punishment that things often get muddied, even in the research. For example, do reductions in blood pressure or cholesterol levels happen because an individual has lost weight or is there an exercise mechanism?
You can insert a litany of conditions for blood pressure. Doctors mainly “prescribe*” exercise as a means for weight management, which will alleviate many conditions. But, in my opinion, that vastly undervalues exercise. And it certainly creates a huge disconnect for people in larger bodies trying to get proper care and diagnoses. In short, it’s going through your @$$ to get to your appetite.
The way exercise and movement add value to your Physical Health is by actually requesting your body does work. When we exercise, we are asking our muscles to contract. That sounds simple, but there is a ton involved with that. First, you have to know which type of exercise because that affects which energy system you are calling on. Strength training and walking both require muscle contractions, but in two very different ways.
Second, your body needs to be able to plan movement, initiate and stop it, and correct it, all on the fly. Your brain has to coordinate every single action (whether you are consciously aware of it or not) then tell your body what to do and fix it when your body does something different. Your body also has to be able to tell your brain where it is and if everything is going well or not.
Third, you have to recover. I talk a lot about how we actually make whatever improvements we are looking for during the recovery process. Through a super complex system of feedback loops, your body has to return to its resting state post exercise. And since exercise is a stress on the system, the body wants to make sure it is ready for the next similar stress, so it has to set itself up for that.
Our metabolism governs what energy system is working and how and where fuel is being produced. Motor control describes the constant communication between the brain and the muscles. If you want to work on cardiac related issues, you aren’t going to stress your biceps. You are going to go for a bike ride and let oxidative phosphorylation deliver ATP to the large working muscles. During recovery, this will result in a drop in blood pressure so your system is ready for the next ride. Ditto for metabolic issues like diabetes, so your body can use blood sugar more readily.
And just to illustrate things further, you can apply this same idea to strength training. If you are looking to rehab an injury or improve pain somewhere, you are going to stress the specific set of muscles and joints. You are going to pick up heavy things repeatedly, but in short bursts relying on the phosphocreatine system to deliver ATP right at those muscles. During recovery, the body will need to repair micro tears to support the muscles’ need to move stronger and better next time.
The real value add of movement is… whatever you want it to be. That will naturally ebb and flow throughout the seasons of life. I, for one, can attest that the exercises I choose now are different than what I chose ten and twenty years ago. Or, more correctly, they are similar exercises but applied differently. I still walk and I still strength train, but my goals and available time are much different now. In my younger years, I may have done squats so that I could grow my glutes. Ten years ago, I did squats so that I could pick up a growing baby and all his stuff from the floor with ease. Now I do squats so that I can stay pain free and (hopefully) get up off the toilet without help when I am 75. Ain’t nothing wrong with any of those goals.
My point here, as it has been throughout this series, is that exercise and movement should be something that adds to your life. If it doesn’t, or doesn’t feel that way, then it might be time to re-evaluate both the exercise you are choosing and what you are hoping to gain. Weight loss without further reflection is an inherent take away. If your goal is weight loss to decrease pain so you can do more of the things you enjoy, then that’s different.
How you go about exercise can also be an inherent take away. Weight loss, even as in the above example of decreasing pain, isn’t a value add if what you are choosing as exercise makes you miserable. We owe it to ourselves to create as enjoyable an experience as we can around exercise. There are too many things movement can bring to our lives if we let it.
Until next time, be well friends!
*If you are wondering why I put prescribe in “”, it’s because doctors are typically not qualified to do this with exercise. Most of them have extremely minimal training in exercise and nutrition. As much as I talk about practitioners staying in their lane, this should apply to doctors, too. I, and those like me, are the ones with the appropriate training to prescribe exercise.
