When More is More

Source: Señor Codo, on Flickr

A few weeks ago, I recommended that folks shoot for doing more than the minimum guidelines established for physical activity. One of my arguments was that more exercise results in better health outcomes.

Well, a recent study published in the International Journal of Epidemiology seems to confirm this. Their study examined hundreds of studies done over the years, and found that people who exercised longer and more intensely had a decreased risk of death.   The reduction was 10% for those who did moderate activities for half an hour, five days per week. For those who did five hours of vigorous activity per week, their risk dropped 39%.  That’s not too shabby!

The researchers on the other side of the computer screen will point out that correlation does not imply causation…this study doesn’t conclusively prove that physical activity decreases your risk of death.  But until we can find an ethical way of isolating and controlling all of the variables that can affect a person’s longevity, this is probably about as close as we’re going to get.  I can live with that.

Exercising During Pregnancy

Photo credit: Jonny Hunter

On Monday I ran across a story about a mother who gave birth to a healthy, full-term baby shortly after completing the Chicago Marathon this past weekend.  With the blessing of her doctor, she ran and walked the race, finishing in about six and a half hours. Last week, I watched a video that highlighted rock climber Carrie Cooper, who continued to climb (with significant modifications) into her 39th week of pregnancy.

If you check out the comments following these stories, you’ll see that exercising during pregnancy remains a bit controversial. Not long ago, the prevailing advice to pregnant women was to rest, rest, rest.  Now, folks are starting to question whether they’ve been too conservative, and women are trying to understand just what kinds of activities they can safely participate in.

The sad truth is that there is very, very little research in this area.  No doubt that is because studying pregnant women can be an ethically tricky endeavor.  (No one wants to inadvertently screw up some child’s potential while they’re still in utero!)  Most of the research that has been done appears to be by a physician named James Clapp III, who’s gone on to write a book about pregnancy and exercise. Unfortunately, I can’t access his original research OR his book at the moment, but the abstracts of both suggest findings that support continued exercise during pregnancy.

That sentiment is reflected by the most recent guidelines provided by the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. (Full disclosure: I can’t access their actual guidelines, so I’m using this summary article published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine as my reference.)  While admitting that evidence in this field is lacking, they definitely lean toward encouraging mothers-to-be to remain active.  They even support previously inactive women to begin an exercise program while they’re pregnant.

You might ask, with so little science to back them up, why do they lean in this direction?  Here’s my understanding: physical activity has clear benefits to the health of women who are not pregnant. Why should this change once a woman is bearing a child?  As we’ve seen no evidence that exercise adversely affects the fetus, it seems in everyone’s best interest that physical activity continues throughout a pregnancy.

It’s always a good idea to discuss exercise plans with health care providers, but generally speaking, healthy women who are experiencing an uncomplicated pregnancy should be allowed to exercise, using some common-sense guidelines.  The mother should be comfortable while doing the activity: if it hurts, stop.  Also, sports should be modified to minimize the risk of injury.  (Realizing, off course, that life cannot ever be entirely free of risk, so there’s some grey area in there as to what activities should or shouldn’t be deemed “too risky.”)