Hi, Z-Health community!
You can see I’m still in Copenhagen.
I wanted to shoot you another quick blog from here, and to honor the fact that we’re in Denmark; I was going to talk to you a little bit about a study I just read.
Here’s the referenced article: http://www.sciencedaily.com/
I thought it was really interesting because it connects to all the things we’ve been talking about with regards to habit change and how small things that you can add into your life can make enormous impacts.
There’s actually a department here at the University of Denmark that is devoted to looking at sport science and its impact on fitness and health. They just released a study on 70 year-old men.
They took a group of men who obviously are advancing in age. They had no prior soccer experience and they trained them to play soccer. These 70 plus year old men played soccer for 2 hours per week. Think about that. That’s 160 hours per week total. They played 2 hours.
After 4 months they had remarkable changes in their bodies. Their maximum oxygen uptake in increased 15%. Their performance on what’s called interval exercise testing, meaning how well their body could regulate their heart and all kinds of things like that, improved by 50%. Their muscle activation, their muscle performance, improved by 30% and also very cool in 4 months their bones got stronger. They actually increased the strength of their bones by 2%; which is actually really phenomenal
We know that exercise is good. Right? In general we talk about this all the time that more activity makes the body adapt in a positive way. Z-Health is designed to help you figure out exactly how much exercise you need for your specific situation. If you’re not yet working with a Z-Health trainer or you’re not looking at our information, you need to get a hold of it.
We just did a live training about 2 weeks ago that shows how to implement a lot of our exercises for your own personal training programs, so if you want to know more about that, you can email us.
Ultimately what I really wanted to encourage you to do this week was to get out and play. Remember this didn’t talk about 70 year old men that went to the gym and did a lot of hard working out. They went out and they played. They picked a game and they learned it. In learning it, their bodies improved.
If you’ve ever heard us talk about being Options Facilitators in Z-Health, that’s how we consider ourselves. We’re not about working out. We are about exercise in a way that’s fun that you can build into your life because we know that whenever you enjoy it, and it’s more playful, not only do you get greater pleasure from it, but you’re more likely to continue it.
Give that a thought this week. Think about all the things that you always wanted to do. Did you want to play soccer or volleyball or basketball or hockey or tennis? Start asking, “How could I make that happen.”
We are honestly the experts in that. We can show you how to move. We can show you how to train your eyes. We can show you how to train your balance.
As you’re thinking about your life and things that would be really fun to do, if you need help, please let us know.
Once again, from wonderful Copenhagen, thanks so much.
I look forward to talking to you soon.