Strong women

[Heyutang]

Strength vs Endurance:

just look at the differnce in the bodys of the 100-400 m sprinters and the 800+ runners. the sprinters don't get faster by just sprinting. the distance runners never have any significant muscle mass.

David, what does this mean in relation to the second discussion going on here, namely what type of training has the best effect on health? I don't think muscle mass has anything to do with health. The people that live the longest, in general, are the Japanese. They are very slim.

[VeganEssentials]

Heyutang,

It doesn't necessarily relate that muscle mass = longer life, but at the same time, the slim build of the Japanese doesn't prove that being lower in muscle mass prolongs lifespan. For example, with the Okinawans, who have the longest lifespan, it factors primarily to diet and environmental situations. I don't think that having an additional 10 lbs. of muscle mass would have been a major factor in this as far as lifespan - the Japanese aren't a culture that prizes large physiques (other than that of the sumo wrestler, but not as a norm), so finding subjects of proportionally larger builds won't be an easy task. And as has been shown, their lifespan quickly decreases upon moving to the USA and adopting an American diet and dealing with our environmental situations here. Those two things play far more into longetivity than all else. I'm sure the Okinawans do more physical work than most Americans, but I'd be curious to know just how many of them performed regualr CV work to aid in prolonging their lifespan. My bet is, not too many!

Ryan

[Heyutang]

Agree Ryan, thought of that as well a little later.
My example was not very well chosen. Although I do think that those people that get old have far more slow twich fibers in their muscles. But we talked about that already in this thread. You see, aerobic capacity and cardiac function are two out of several factors that are often measured to determine real aging of the body. These are best trained by endurance training, as one can read in those studies I posted in this thread. I acknowledge all the benefits of strength training, but in the long run, I believe endurance training is more effective in reaching better health.

[sensless]

To those of you discussing types of exercise that best improve quality and length of life.

To add some direction in where to look for research and identify the issues at hand, you may want to check into research experiments done with NASA and the effects of weightlessness on the human body. When a person is removed from the Earth's gravitational force, the body's atrophying closely resembles the aging process. Because of this, the methods that astronauts use to combat the bone loss, muscle loss and other various effects they experience while in weightlessness may lend some good supporting information for discovery of an answer to the question of, "What effects do different types of exercise have on long term health benefits?", and "Why or how these exercise types produce those effects?". It may also help to identify which factors should actually be considered when discussing "anti-aging" and bring more focus to the discussion. You may want to continue this particular discussion and research in a new topic thread, as "Strong Women", is really quite unrelated. Though I often turn threads a different direction than they were initially intended so who am I to even offer such an idea? Ha!

I haven't looked, but there may be some research contained at http://spaceresearch.nasa.gov, alternatively if you receive or wish to go to the libary to look for the publication titled, "Space Research", you can peruse through its issues to check for related information. I think the current issue may have a short article discussing some of this information and perhaps it can lead to other publications or research that contains more thorough information.

Regards,

John Jr.

PS Yes, I am a nerd. Thanks for noticing.