Exercise Mind, Exercise Body -- or Both?

Confession: I have an insatiable appetite for books, magazines, and articles about physical fitness. Reading material about exercise and diet fills up my study, and also my bedroom, closets, and even garage. Am I therefore a sterling exemplar of fitness? No way, but I do try.

See the picture below? That's me doing chin-ups at Fort Gordon, Georgia. Just kidding, but I did go through basic training at Fort Gordon, and we had to swing through a monkey bar every morning at 5 a.m. before we could have breakfast. I couldn't do it for the longest time, so the sergeant on duty would eventually have mercy and let me have about five minutes to chow down. Who knew that one day Gov. Charles Robb would name me to the Governor's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports for Virginia?

Recently I have come to realize that Science Daily, a rich source of research news, can feed me all the new fodder on exercise I could possibly digest. Consider just a small sampling of SD's recent and archived headlines (and guys, try not to be distracted by the next photo):

More Physically Active Adults Have Improved Cardiorespiratory Fitness

Total Amount of Exercise Important, Not Frequency

Exercise-Induced Improvements in Glycemic Control and Type 2 Diabetes

Exercise May Affect Food Motivation

Some Exercise Is Better Than None

Intensity and Exercise Duration LInked to Improved Outcomes for Heart Failure Patients

Moderate Exercise Could Be Good for Your Tendons

Exercise Provides Some Benefits for Depression

Exercise Linked With Reduced Prostate Cancer Risk in Caucasians But Not African-Americans

Aerobic Exercise Benefits Memory in Persons With MS

Why Women Have Greater Shortness of Breath Than Men When Exercising

Exercise Beneficial for Dementia

Aerobic Exercise Boost Brain Power, Review Finds

Long, Low Intensity Exercise May Have More Health Benefits Relative to Short, Intense Workout

And on and on and on go the studies, some of them comparatively contradictory, but virtually all telling you in one way or another that exercise is good for you.

If you want to read any of these stories, you can find them in Science Daily on my bloglist over to the right of this page.

I dearly love to read the latest (or the oldest) about exercise and fitness. The more time I do that, the less time I have to do actual exercises. (Just kidding -- sorta.)

I believe this kind of knowledge empowers us. However, we have to take responsibility for our own fitness quest. The motto in the photo below has it about right. A statist nanny cannot do it for us in a free society.

                                                           © Robert G. Holland  2013