Exercise & Fitness Archive

Understanding risk and modifying your activities can cushion your joints from damage.

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Joints are a little bit like couch cushions. Over time, the padding between your bones, called cartilage, gets worn out and flattens down — a condition known as osteoarthritis. Unfortunately, dealing with worn joints is not as simple as fixing or replacing a couch. And whether your joints wear out may not be entirely in your control.

"Unfortunately, a lot of your risk depends on your genes," says Dr. Scott Martin, an orthopedic surgeon and associate professor of orthopedic surgery at Harvard Medical School. "If you have a history of arthritis in your family, you may get arthritis in your lifetime. That's one factor you can't control." Dr. Martin is the faculty editor for the Harvard Special Health Report Knees and Hips (www.health.harvard.edu/knees).

Research we're watching

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As many people have suspected, a new study confirms that standing more can help you burn more calories. But the number of calories it burns in the course of the day isn't even enough to work off a fun-size candy bar.

The results of a Mayo Clinic study, published online January 31 by the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, found that adults who weighed 143 pounds, the average weight in the study, burned 0.15 more calories per minute while they stood than when they sat. So, in a six-hour day of standing instead of sitting, they would burn some 54 extra calories.

Harvard fitness expert Michele Stanten takes you through a simple routine that will safely elevate your heart rate to keep your fitness goals on track.

All you need are light clothing, a good pair of shoes and a few minutes of your day and Harvard exercise expert Michele Stanten will have you on your way to meeting your fitness goals.

Decades of research show that yoga can reduce the emotional and physical fatigue brought on by cancer treatment. In 2017, scientists reported for the first time that this is also true specifically for men undergoing treatment for prostate cancer. Men who took a yoga class twice a week during prostate cancer radiation treatment reported less fatigue, fewer sexual side effects, and better urinary functioning than men who did not.

The research team enrolled 50 men ages 53 to 85 who were diagnosed with early or advanced nonmetastatic prostate cancer. Of them, 22 were assigned to yoga classes and the rest did not participate in yoga. All the men received scheduled radiation treatments; 29 of them were also on hormonal therapy, and 19 had been treated previ-ously with surgery. The yoga and control groups were evenly balanced with respect to various cancer treatments as well as treatments for side effects.

If you're like most people, your posture could use some improvement. But how do you do that? The classic advice is to stand straight, with your head up, shoulders back, and belly in. While these are reasonable adjustments, tai chi takes a different approach that may be more effective. It aims to align the body in ways that afford safe, unstrained, and graceful postures—not the military-like, one-size-fits all, rigid stances many think of as good posture.

Instead, in tai chi, good posture centers around the principle of verticality. That means the head is centered over the torso, the torso rests over the hips, and the hips are centered over the legs and feet, your base of support. Here's how to do it.

You can strengthen your abs without feeling like you're tackling a daunting workout.

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For some people, crunches and other abdominal muscle workouts are the last thing they'd want to do — so they don't. "Part of the perception is that it's difficult. We tend to want to avoid doing things that require effort, especially as we get older, when that's harder for us," says Lorna Brown, a physical therapist who specializes in geriatrics at Harvard-affiliated Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital.

But skipping abdominal strengtheners can have a big effect on your mobility and independence — and not for the better.

Proven therapies for this painful leg problem should soon be more accessible.

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When fatty deposits clog the arteries that supply blood to the legs, even a short walk can cause leg cramping and pain. This condition, called claudication, comes from the Latin word claudicatio, meaning "to limp." It's the hallmark of peripheral artery disease, or PAD, which affects roughly one in seven people over the age of 60.

People with PAD are also likely to have clogged arteries (atherosclerosis) in the heart. In fact, they may be even more prone to heart attacks and strokes than people with heart disease who have already had one of those problems.

Research we're watching

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If you walk on busy city streets, breathing the traffic fumes may cancel out the health benefits of the exercise, a new study suggests.

The London-based study, published online Dec. 5, 2017, by The Lancet, included 119 volunteers over the age of 60 who were either healthy or had stable chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or stable heart disease. They all walked for two hours midday at two different locations. One was in a quiet section of Hyde Park, where air pollution is usually within healthy limits. The other was on a busy shopping area on Oxford Street, where levels of pollutants such as black carbon, nitrogen dioxide, and fine particulate matter regularly reach dangerous levels. The walks were separated by three to eight weeks.