Last week, we did a blog about the power of movement to enhance one’s health and well-being. It focused on dance, in all its forms, to enhance physiological and neuromuscular capacity among older individuals. I included a video of 94-year-old Mathilda Kline that you might want to check out. It’s a hoot!
Our incredible physiological and anatomical design carries one small burden: Use as directed, or lose it.
The value of dance as a form of exercise cannot be overstated. It provides all of the components of a total workout: strength, flexibility, endurance, coordination, balance and sweat (subject to the nature and intensity of the dance). These are the exact elements of healthy living that escape nearly all populations among advanced, industrial nations—the root of the obesity epidemic.
In terms of healthy living and reducing the onset and severity of chronic disease, absolutely nothing compares with regular, appropriate exercise.
The human body has evolved over millions of years to become the most versatile, physiologically capable and enduring on the planet. To boot, our species is blessed with an exceptional central nervous systems, allowing us to calculate options in order to live as well as possible and free of danger to life and limb.
However, our incredible physiological and anatomical design carries one small burden: Use as directed, or lose it.
That’s right, the conditions that most plague modern men and women have to do with chronic diseases, most of which are a direct result of regular, habitual and deliberate physical inactivity.
Public health dictums and common sense tell us that prevention of disease is best—and available to most–through healthy choices. And at the top of the list of healthy choices? (Drum roll please!) EXERCISE!
We launched this site to provide readers with sound, evidence-based and practical tips on health living. If is seems to lean a little toward older people, we make no apologies. If you’re not “old” now, you will be, and the best time to get ready for it is when you’re younger. How much younger? As young as you are right now. And you might think about the value of this information for your aging relatives and friends. Now there’s a gift worth giving! Help us build this site, gather a crowd, and launch an international movement.
So, begin by clicking on the attached video to get a look at another dance lover. Then you’ll understand why, when asked the question about how early should one begin exercising, my mentor, Casey Conrad, used to tell his audiences: “From the cradle to the grave."