Tortoise or hare: which do you choose to be? Your exercise program may make the difference

Tortoise or Hare:

Which Do You Choose to Be?

It was the loudest scream I had ever heard. Brett was lying on the floor in a pool of blood, writhing in pain and agony, screaming. His dreams of championship were over. The course of his life would be forever changed.

Brett had gained national attention the year before when he won the 181-pound-class Olympic Weightlifting National Clean and Jerk Championship competition at 28 years of age. He was training very hard for the 1980 Olympic Games with a good chance of distinguishing himself there.

I had known him only a few weeks as he worked out in the university weight room. I could always find Brett there, training hard at all hours of the day. It showed. The guy had biceps as big as my thighs, and not because of excess fat! His shoulders looked as if he wore football pads under his skin. This guy was built!

We had become good friends in the weight room. I was a runner and did not know how to lift weights, but I wanted to gain some upper-body strength. He, on the other hand, wanted to gain some endurance, for he felt unusually out of breath when he climbed a flight of stairs. So he set me up with a weight lifting program, and I set him up with a running program. The first day we ran together I could not believe his condition. He could not run even one mile before complete fatigue and exhaustion set in. Here was a guy who looked like one of the most physically fit persons in the world. Aside from being strong, however, he was one of the most unfit individuals I had ever seen for his age.

A few days after that run, just as I entered the weight room, I heard that unbelievable scream. I heard weights crashing to the floor. When I rushed in, I saw Brett agonizing in pain. He had been trying to squat 800 pounds when the weights fell on him. A hemorrhoid had ruptured during the lift, causing him to collapse in excruciating pain.

Two questions have haunted my mind since that experience: Why do people lift such heavy weights, greatly increasing the risk of injury? and Is weightlifting a worthwhile exercise if it makes a person big and strong but leaves him unable to run a mile?

Tortoise or Hare? Most of us know the story of the tortoise and the hare. Have you ever thought about their physical condition -- their fitness level -- before their famous race? Do you think their mode of exercise contributed to the difference in winning? If you were going to run that race, who would you choose to be? The rabbit is much faster; he has the speed and fitness level of a track sprinter. If compared to a car, the hare would be a dragster. Such a car goes very fast over a short distance, but it eats up a lot of fuel to get there. On the other hand, the turtle is like a marathon walker or a Volkswagen Beetle. It travels slowly and steadily, but it can go long distances on a gallon of gas. So which would you choose to be?

Before answering, consider this. Who you choose to be (the VW or the dragster) should depend on the conditions of the event, the distance (long or short), the energy cost (efficiency of fuel requirements), the climate (warm, humid, snowing, etc.), and the challenge you have to meet (climbing a mountain, running a smooth path, swimming a lake). In the same way, we need to think about what type of exercise is best for each one of us, especially on our limited daily time schedules. You may ask, "Are some types of exercise better than others? If so, which type of exercise should I take up?"

What kind of exercise? Different types of exercise provide different benefits. Your choice of physical activity will depend on what you want from an exercise program. Strength? Big muscles? More efficient heart and lungs? Weight loss? Stronger bones? There are certain choices that can give you many benefits, especially for your time and effort.

The components of total physical fitness include strength, flexibility, and cardiovascular (heart and blood vessel) endurance. Of these, endurance improvement is the benefit most people want from their exercise program. Aerobic exercise is the largest contributor to cardiovascular improvement. Aerobic exercise is the type that steadily supplies sufficient oxygen to the exercising muscles for as long as the exercise is continued. Any rhythmic, repetitive, dynamic activity that can be continued for three or more minutes without huffing and puffing afterward is probably aerobic. During such exercise your heart beats faster, your breathing becomes deeper, and your blood vessels expand, carrying needed oxygen to the working muscles. A regular program of such exercise improves your body's ability to consume, transport, and utilize oxygen; increases HDL cholesterol (the kind that protects against heart disease); and increases the pumping action of the heart, all of which reduces your risk of cardiovascular disease. The most popular aerobic activities involving the larger muscles of the body are walking, jogging, bicycling, swimming, and cross-country skiing. You may also select activities such as rope skipping, racket sports, soccer, and court sports like basketball, as long as the activity is carried out continuously.

These exercises should not be confused with some others that may be strenuous but are not rhythmic and steady. A runner or swimmer is engaging in a "pay as you go" type of exercise that is aerobic. In other words, enough oxygen is taken in to meet the demands of the exercise. On the other hand, a person running very fast (as in a 100-yard dash) or lifting heavy weights is involved in not aerobic but rather anaerobic (without oxygen) activity, because the person cannot keep up the pace. Anaerobic activities like strength training -- which uses higher resistance for muscular movement -- also have benefits, of course. These include lower LDL cholesterol (the cholesterol that promotes heart disease), stronger bones, and increased muscle strength. It is often beneficial for those who are engaged in aerobic activities such as running or cycling to supplement their basic endurance training with strength and muscle building.

The results of different types of conditioning are displayed in this chart:

As you can see, the aerobic capacity will increase if you use more than one type of exercise, but aerobic training alone is more effective, overall, in improving endurance performance.

My friend Brett, after several painful surgeries, took up circuit weight training, a form of weight lifting in which the athlete lifts lighter weights repeatedly. He had to abandon his goal of becoming an Olympic weight-lifting champion, but his general health improved. The last I heard he was making a great start in marketing, his chosen career.

The right choice of exercise can help you do better in your chosen career, too, as in everything else you do. If you're not exercising now, get started!

Kerry S. Kuehl, M.S., is a Dr. P.H. candidate in nutrition at Loma Linda University School of Medicine, Loma Linda, California.

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