Does exercise extend your lifespan? A Harvard alumni study, following close to 17,000 male alumni over a period of 22 years, estimated that subjects beginning and continuing to exercise throughout their life by the age of 35 to 39 years of age were able to add 1 to 2 years to their life, relative to those following a sedentary lifestyle.
You may not live longer than your non-exercising peers, but your quality of life should be drastically different. What aerobic and anaerobic exercise is providing, is the required stress to the cardio vascular, bones and muscular system to keep it in good shape, and usable. You can go overboard on the vitamins, diet, bananas and berries, but nothing can compare to exercise to keep your body functioning and as useful as possible as you age.
If you do running, walking, tennis, cross country skiing (not downhill) is that enough? For your cardiovascular system yes, but what about those 600 and some muscles you left out? To maintain your muscles, keep them functioning and to prevent atrophy – you really need weight work. Why? To maintain those muscles and bones, they need a full contraction or a complete movement while being over loaded with a weight. Without being overloaded and stressed by weights, those muscles will atrophy – you loss body mass. Make those muscles work and your body will keep them during your life time – what is that old saying…use it or lose it!
