Today I happened to be able to have a few minutes conversation with a surgeon. Those few minutes were relating to exercise. What she said was especially notable in the context of this blog because she said that the single best thing a person can do to help avoid or (if it may be the case) fight off cancer is to exercise.
She said that she herself didn’t start exercising until she was 40, but that now she exercises every day. Her preference is CrossFit, early in the mornings… something not practical for us. But she did mention the rowing machine and said that though she “hates it,” it is the very best thing for elevating a person’s heart rate. She recommends intervals for that purpose. Intervals can be arranged so that they dole out work in small but regular doses throughout an exercise session.
She is a cancer surgeon and sees that scourge up close and personal, hundreds of times a year. So she has that much more motivation than most people who rarely or seldom think about it, to live in a way which will best help her to avoid it herself.
She also said that all the cancer doctors she knows exercise,because they know the high value of exercise to help ward off cancer. She referred to another doctor we have met, an oncologist, who “rides a bike 50 miles at a time” as her personal choice of regular exercise for the sake of elevating her heart rate and getting her to the point of breathing hard for a while each day.
She said that exercising at a level that either elevates heart rate or causes a person to breathe harder and feel like they are working (some people call that approach the perceived effort approach) … is important and that she recommends 30 minutes daily of working out.
So… with all that and more in mind, I decided to make intervals a more frequent part of rowing. The intervals of choice today were 1 minute on and three minutes off – one minute of sprinting sorta fast and 3 minutes of taking it easy.
The session was setup as a half marathon but there wasn’t enough time to do the whole distance. It was a fine workout.
The session was uploaded to YouTube and will be available at the following link: “Indoor Rowing 11276 meters 03082018“.
Happy rowing to you.