Q. I have caught the gym ’bug’ after years of avoiding regular exercise. I am keen to keep my bones strong and burn calories too, so I spend 45 minutes on the treadmill most days. Is this the best machine for me? A.M., Maynooth
Well done on taking up regular exercise. Daily aerobic exercise of 30 minutes or more is advised by many experts for cardiovascular health and will certainly burn calories!
Not alone are you helping keep your heart, lungs and blood pumping systems in good shape but you will also keep your muscle and bone mass stronger and healthier.
However, a few issues concerning treadmill use. It is great for the muscles of the legs but affects the upper body to a much lesser extent. The next concern is about impact. Loading the joints of the lower body through impact activities is an agreed positive strategy for good bone density, but excessive or cumulative impact can be detrimental for the integrity of joint surfaces. So, while addressing one health issue, you may inadvertently cause another.
The speed, type of programme and angle of incline are worth considering. From a bone density point of view, current medical advice is that speed should be varied during the session. Speeding up and slowing down has been shown scientifically to improve bone density more than running at one speed for the same length of time.
Adding a slight incline places more challenge on the heart and limb muscles, but be careful with amount of incline as raising the treadmill above three degrees places considerable extra work load on the muscles of the front of the shin and knees and can bring on problems in these areas.
Bearing these issues in mind, my suggestion is to change from treadmill to the cross trainer. Why? Several years ago a team at DCU researched the question ‘what is the best gym machine?’ Taking into account factors such as workload, numbers of muscles used, heart rate, loading, impact and calorie burn, perhaps unsurprisingly the treadmill scored highly. You may be surprised that the cross trainer produced similar calorie burn. They scored this machine superior to the treadmill, exercise bike, rowing machine and others for reasons including that the cross trainer works both upper and lower body muscles, is weight bearing as it is performed standing up, burns calories efficiently but reduces impact as the feet slide on paddles rather than lifting and falling with each step as in running, and has no incline related issues. May I suggest you give it a go? Let me know how you get on!
|
