Dr. Nicholas Cappello

The benefits of walking exercise include preventing or curing many diseases.

1.Managing your weight. Combined with healthy eating, walking is a great exercise to control Wight . Adding walking to any exercise program will teach your body to burn fat.

Especially effective is walking 2x daily, 5 – 7 days per week. By losing weight it lowers the risk of type 2 diabetes.

2.Walk for health, slash risk of heart disease & decrease your risk of heart attack. Exercise such as brisk walking for three hours a week — or just half an hour a day — is associated with a 30% to 40% lower risk (Based on the 20-year Nurses’ Health Study of 72,000 female nurses.)

3.Walking for fitness will lower your risk of stroke. Brisk walking for an hour a day, five days a week, can cut the risk of stroke in half, according to a Harvard study of more than 11,000 men.

4.One of the benefits of walking is that it boosts “good” cholesterol– the level of high-density lipoproteins (HDL).Walking exercise programs help reduce “bad” cholesterol, which cause plaque buildup in artery walls.

5.One of the more important benefits of walking, it helps control blood pressure. Aerobic walking strengthens the heart so it can pump more blood with less effort & with less pressure on the arteries. Fitness is just as effective as some medications in keeping down blood pressure levels. Essentially, walking is the best exercise for cardiovascular health.

6.A walking exercise program may reduce cancer risk. A study published in the Sept. 10, 2003 Journal of the American Medical Association found that women who walked briskly for 1.25 to 2.5 hours per week had an 18% reduction breast cancer risk. Research has also shown walking is the best exercise for reducing risk of colon cancer.Get fit through walking & strengthen your immune system in the process.

7.Walking relieves sleep apnea.

8.Relieves arthritis and back pain,  much better then other exercises because walking is less stressful than other popular exercises.

9.Benefits of walking extend to avoiding need for gallstone surgery. Regular walking or other physical activity lowers the risk of needing gallstone surgery by 20% to 31%, according to a Harvard study of more than 60,000 women ages 40 to 65.  

10. Walking for fitness of the mind: helps prevent & relieve depression. Walking for 30 minutes, three to five times per week for 12 weeks reduced symptoms of depression. Walking exercise the best activity for lowering stress levels.Walking helps elevate mood, sense of well-being & self-esteem.

Finally, walking exercise is superior to other activities because with all of its benefits, it doesn’t pose the same risks for injury & burnout that many other exercises do. I love tennis& running, but for all their health benefits, both activities can be murder on joints. Not walking.

The biggest mistake people make when they resume exercising after a winter layoff is doing too much too soon with a body that should have been trained all year long. You shouldn’t take a vacation from exercise. I recommend the 10 Percent Rule: Don’t ramp up your mileage or weightlifting more than 10 percent per week.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure ,the best thing you can do to prevent injury is to seek balance – equal amounts of cardio, strength-building, core, and flexibility exercise. Factor in your weak links, and pick routines that are right for you.

There’s a mismatch between longevity and durability. If you’re lucky and have the right genes and take care of yourself, longevity is not an issue. It’s durability that’s the big problem for many of us in the second half. Life expectancy has doubled, but evolution hasn’t caught up, and we’re outliving the warranty on our frame, wearing out our body parts.
The term boomeritis is shorthand for our weak links and vulnerabilities, the gray hair and wrinkles of the musculoskeletal system.
Patients ask me if doing push-ups and pounding the pavement after age 60 is healthy. It’s a matter of finding and respecting your limits. If you have a torn rotator cuff, you shouldn’t be doing heavy or explosive overhead weight training. If you have arthritis in your knees, you shouldn’t run marathons. I do not endorse “no pain, no gain”?
It’s not a great mantra or second-half strategy. Your body’s reparative capacity dwindles with age; it takes longer to heal and to recover from workouts. Pain is an important warning signal. There’s a difference between hurting and harming.
I am an advocate of “3-D fitness. It means using and moving your body outside of the gym, engaging in activities that are spontaneous, unpredictable, and fun and that involve balance, agility, and hand-eye coordination. Exercises I suggest are core work. A strong, stable core significantly reduces force and stress across the joints. If I were exiled to a desert island, my exercise equipment would be elastic bands, a stability ball, and a variable-weight dumbbell.
Look there is no “fountain of youth” Exercise is as good as gold. Much of what we’ve traditionally thought of as aging has more to do with inactivity and sedentary behavior, such as muscle and agility loss. And much of that is preventable and reversible.
There is misinformation about stretching, the notion that stretching doesn’t help or that it causes injuries. That’s insane. Stretching done properly will never harm anyone. I see so many ailments where tight muscles are a factor
I play tennis a couple of times a week at a high level. I also like hitting with somebody who’s good so that I’m drenched at the end. I go to the gym twice a week for aerobic exercise and strength training, and I avoid taking an elevator and walk as much as possible and do lots of physical stuff.
There is good news in 20 years, instead of being primarily reparative, orthopaedic medicine will be more regenerative. Instead of being Mr. Fixit and patching everything up with duct tape, we’ll be able to regenerate your torn rotator cuff or meniscus, restore and resurface a worn-out knee. The future is bright.
My final words of wisdom, is it’s never too late to change your fate. It’s not so much about the cards you’re dealt as the choices you make and your attitude. The power of the mind to affect healing and recovery is so underestimated.

The Mayo Clinic has a great core exercising program. http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/core-strength/SM00047&slide=4

Following a bone-healthy lifestyle, which includes eating a nutritious diet, taking regular exercise and avoiding smoking and excess alcohol.

By rejecting the misconception that “skinny is beautiful” and not following harmful and excessive weight loss diets, people can build strong bones and help to reduce the risk of breaking bones due to osteoporosis later in life.”

Professor Annie Kung, president of the Osteoporosis Society of Hong Kong, speaking at the conference, predicted an osteoporosis epidemic in Asia, noting: “It is projected that by 2050 about 50% of all osteoporotic hip fractures will occur in Asia. Partly this is due to increasing life expectancy, but is also related to lifestyle factors, including less-healthy eating habits.
The importance of a nutritious diet with sufficient calcium and vitamin D  to build and maintain bone strength has been shown in numerous clinical studies. Like any organ in the body, the skeleton needs a constant supply of nutrients to function properly and replenish itself throughout our lives.”