Exercise is good for us and fitness can reduce our risk of heart disease and possibly help us live longer, but how much and what kind of physical activity can change a person’s fitness level? New research led by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital presents (MGH) And Boston University, published in the European Heart Journal, provides information on how different types of physical activity affect the fitness and health of the heart and respiratory system.
According to a report by the site news.harvard The research looked at core and respiratory fitness, or the ability of the heart and lungs to deliver oxygen to the body’s muscles during physical activity, in 2,070 participants in a long-term, multigenerational study designed to identify factors that contribute to cardiovascular disease.
Participants underwent tests for physiological parameters during exercise and wore physical activity trackers for one week at a time, and then again about eight years later..
In this analysis, researchers found that people who increased their daily steps, engaged in more moderate to vigorous physical activity, or decreased sitting time between the two tests showed improvements in distinct aspects of cardiorespiratory fitness during exercise sessions, from warm-up to peak exercise. To recovery, these results were largely consistent regardless of participants’ baseline activity level, age, gender, weight, and risk of heart disease..
Increasing moderate to vigorous physical activity by 17 minutes per day, taking 4,312 extra steps per day (about 54 minutes at a rate of 80 steps per minute), or reducing 249 minutes of sitting time per day has been shown to improve heart and respiratory health.
The researchers also found that individuals with higher than average number of steps or higher than average amount of moderate to vigorous physical activity among study participants also had higher than average peak oxygen uptake values regardless of the amount of time during the day sedentary..
Senior author Gregory D. Lewis, who is director of the Cardiopulmonary Exercise Testing Laboratory at MGH We conducted this analysis to understand the relative effects of changing sedentary activity, low-level physical activity, and moderate to vigorous activity on multiple areas of exercise capacity as measured objectively by the cardiopulmonary exercise test.
The results of the study confirmed that individuals with above-average steps per day or moderate to vigorous physical activity had above-average fitness levels regardless of the amount of time they spent sitting. What inactivity does to fitness may also be offset by higher levels of activity and exercise.
