Building and maintaining core strength is a key to keeping mobility as we age.
But assuming no damage, aren’t we naturally inclined to stay in balance, without training? No, Mossa said. Most people become less stable as they age because they challenge their bodies less and, as a result, tighten up.
“Your body will only give you as much mobility as it can control,” he said. “If it senses any instability it will cut off that range of motion. But you can increase it with balance training.”
Seasun Zieger’s latest step aerobics fitness video is now available for pre-order.
Two Stanford University biologists have developed a method for cooling the human body by maximizing heat transfer through the palms of the hands.
“We literally cool the body from the inside out, rather than from the outside in, which is the conventional method,†explains Senior Research Scientist Dennis Grahn, who developed the cooling device with H. Craig Heller, the Lorry I. Lokey/Business Wire Professor in Human Biology and Environmental Biology.
The device works by creating a local subatmospheric pressure environment, Grahn says. “We stick the hand in a rigid chamber with an airtight seal around the wrist, and then we draw a bit of the air out of the chamber,†he explains. “This causes blood to be pulled into the hand. Then we cool the overlying skin surface of the palm of the hand [by circulating cool water through a closed system on which the palm of the hand rests], which cools the blood in the hand’s vascular heat-exchange structures. Arteries deliver blood directly from the heart to these vascular structures, and veins then carry the blood from these structures back to the heart.â€
Most recommendations for aerobic exercise suggests that it be done continuosly for 20-60 minutes, several times a week at moderate to vigorous intensity.
A research team from the University of Missouri-Columbia ran a study on the effect of continuous and intermittent exercise sessions on triglyceride levels.
The researchers tested triglyceride levels on three days. First they had study participants eat a high-fat meal and perform no exercise. On a later day, the participants ate the high-fat meal after 30 minutes of continuous exercise. Then on a third day, they ate the meal after a session of intermittent exercise: three 10-minute increments of physical activity separated by 20 minutes of rest.
After both the continuous and intermittent exercise sessions, the researchers drew blood from the participants.
The intermittent exercise appears to be more effective at lowering triglyceride levels than continuous exercise. The study found that triglyceride levels were reduced by 27 percent in the participants who exercised in intermittent bouts before eating the fatty meal.
