Doctor shares one exercise to do twice a week to stay fit and healthy – Daily Record
A health expert has lifted the lid on which types of exercise actually work best for keeping us healthy, and he says there’s one thing that’s particularly effective.
Dr. Daniel Lieberman, a Harvard University professor who specializes in human evolutionary biology, recently appeared on Steven Bartlett’s Diary of a CEO podcast to talk about all things health.
He explained that he’s always loved walking and running to keep fit, but hadn’t thought about weight training until much more recently — and regrets not getting into it sooner.
Bristol Live reports that Dr. Lieberman explained in the podcast episode that we all need to engage in regular weight training to keep our bodies in good shape as we age.
He said: “I’ve gotten more serious about doing some strength training. I’ve always loved walking and running and endurance sports and I’ve always hated lifting weights, I just don’t like it – I’m not a very strong person.
“People tend to do what they enjoy, it strengthens you. The more I studied the importance of resistance training, the more I realized the importance of doing weights, especially as you get older. I started myself for hitting my head because I was lazy That.”
The goal now is to do “good strength training” twice a week.
“Especially as you get older, the loss of muscle mass can be really debilitating,” he told the podcast. “As people age they tend to lose muscle and when people do that they become frail and you lose functional capacity and that starts a vicious cycle.
“Once that happens, you’re less likely to be physically active. Then your muscles waste more. It’s very debilitating.”
“Aging is just a clock ticking away, we can’t do anything about age, but senescence is the body’s way of deteriorating as we age. What physical activity does is it slows down aging, especially to certain organs.
“The main myth is that as you get older it’s normal to be less active and that’s just not true.”
The doctor also explained that our mental and physical health can take a toll if we become less active.
In addition, not exercising often means that we are more likely to become unwell.
Dr. Lieberman has spent decades studying different communities from around the world because most of the research to date has been done in American or European countries when it comes to diseases.
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