Why You Need Exercise in Your Manual Labor Job (AHA Guidelines)
Source: Phone image, Canva, Unsplash and bg remover
transcript
Hello, hello everyone, and welcome to my channel again. It's Informed Decision, and today I'm going to be telling you about why everybody needs to be working out. You see, when I first started working as a doctor, this was something that was difficult for me to defend.
I usually would be going to the gym, and people would see me going to the gym. There was even one guy, that one person, big person actually, works in my place, my workplace, who says, "I hate myself because I go to the gym."
The person says, "You, you, Dr. Lovet, you don't like yourself. You're going to the gym after all the time you have spent working in the hospital. You're going to the gym. Why are you going to the gym?"
So, it was difficult for me to defend initially, but gradually I started to understand why it is important. You see, sometimes in life, you actually have to do things and then find out why doing those things are important.
It might be the other way around too. Sometimes you need to find out why things are important before you start doing them. But for me, working out has been that thing that I have found out why it's important to me while doing it, and I think it's the best way to fix things in the fitness line.
Do this, do it now, and then maybe later you will find out, okay? So, the American Heart Association suggests that one, if you're an adult, you should get nothing less than...
I don't know how they came up with figures, anyway. I might find out about the studies later. Maybe they yanked it out of their bom, brought it out of their bom, but I doubt it.
I doubt it. I doubt they brought it out of their bom. So, they suggest that you should get at least 150 minutes of moderate exercise every week, preferably spaced out within the week. And what is moderate exercise?
So, moderate exercise, they describe it as playing doubles table tennis, doubles, or gardening.
Probably dancing should be moderate exercise. Um, things like that that you're not moving around so much, but you're getting a lot of exercise in there. I would think also volleyball would class as along that.
For volleyball, you might be more static, but that's moderate exercise. 150 minutes spaced out within the week. Or you should get 75 minutes of vigorous exercise space sty within the week.
And what's vigorous exercise? Vigorous exercise is running. Running for like that. That would be like 10 minutes every day and with one day with 75 minutes and with 15 minutes, rather.
And that's when you think about that, it's actually doable. And they said that it's good if you mix it. You can do moderate Sunday.
American Heart Association Guide Lines
Today is Saturday for me, and I'm just going to go to the gym and have fun, run around and play like I'm not counting the number of minutes I'm spending, although I know that I have a backlog of some days that I've not been able to meet up with these requirements for the American Heart Association, I've been doing my strength training.
Sometimes I work out five minutes at home, and I just try and get my workout in, you understand? So, back to the main topic, why it is important for everyone to be engaging in exercise.
So, for someone like me, I'm a doctor, and on some days I might actually be engaged in running, like I actually run, and if I'm working in the world, I have to be walking around the world throughout the day. So, some people, when I tell them about getting exercise done, getting some exercise, and they start explaining to me that their job already entails them doing some exercise.
Manual Labour
Like I spoke with a guy, he's a surveyor. I've spoken with a lot of people who work in the Nigerian Bottling Company because I see them as patients, and they come to me, and they're like, "Why do I need to do exercise?
Why is it necessary to do exercise? I already spend a lot of my time, you know, doing physical activity that seems like exercise."
Also, in addition to the American Heart Association's guidelines for cardio exercise, they also include two days of strength training. You're supposed to do two days of strength training, so add that.
And then if you are a child less than 18 years old, you are supposed to do one hour of exercise every single day, basically go out and play.
Just go out and play and enjoy yourself. Let your children play. It's good for their heart, okay? It's good for their heart.
So, those people will meet me, and I usually found it hard to explain to them that it is important for you to engage in exercise because for a surveyor, he moves around.
He's looking at, I don't know, the exact details of what surveyors do, but I know it includes a lot of looking around and pointing. "That's a cool building right there. That's a cool, what we're going to do with this geography and topography and, you know, so that's that."
And um, the Bottling Company workers, some of them work in places that in departments where they actually have to lift a lot of heavy load. Actually, that's the reason why they normally come to meet me because they have a lot of back pain.
It's part of reasons why I, whenever somebody says, um, they're having back pain, I immediately go to "What's your occupation." Sometimes I forget to get it from the biodata, and our reception also doesn't get it from get their biodata completely.
So sometimes I have to go back and ask them, "Sorry, what's your occupation?" So you hear a lot of people complaining about back pain.
So I, the first thing I started noticing is that when I started adding to my advice that I give to people that you should engage in a little bit of exercise, especially muscle strengthening, back strengthening exercises, I started noticing that some of them come back, and they tell me that they are no longer having that back pain anymore.
Do you understand? So those two days of strength training, you can do an upper body and a lower body exercise, and it really, really helps you.
It helps with your heart, but it also helps with you being able to engage in all the activities, especially for somebody who is going to be lifting heavy and lifting doing all those types of activities.
It helps you to be able to handle those activities because what are you doing in the gym is Progressive overload? You're teaching yourself, you're teaching your muscles how to lift heavy load.
And then also for those people who are engaging in activities or jobs or occupations where they have to walk long distances, they have to steadily be walking. You are conditioned to do that.
You are also supposed to do light exercises on a day-to-day basis even while you're not supposed to be sedentary throughout your day. It's part of the requirements of the American Heart Association.
So there are like four or five requirements, so you're not supposed to be sedentary throughout the day.
That's the first thing. So that's already a light exercise . If you are walking around the market throughout the day, you're just walking.
That's a light exercise.
So, in addition to that, you're still supposed to do at least a moderate or vigorous exercise every single week. Week to week, you're supposed to get that in spaced out within the week. It's important for your heart.
It's important for your body, generally speaking. Even people who have diabetes mellitus, simply by moving, simply by moving, you are protecting yourself. Your blood sugar starts coming down if you have diabetes mellitus.
So, that's one thing. So, some people, some people would meet me with those type of talking points, and I usually would not have anything to say to them, but at least now I can explain to people that one.
So, these are the recommendations by the American Heart Association: 150 minutes of moderate exercise, preferably spread out through the week, two, or you do 75 minutes of vigorous exercise, preferably spread out through the week.
And even while you are doing your normal job, your normal activities at work, you're supposed to still be able to get up and walk around a little bit, light exercise.
And then, two days of strength training, upper body, lower body. So, now, if you have a job like you are a lineman, you climb up lines regularly, it's going to require a lot of upper body strength from you, and then you can also tailor your exercise to the particular needs of your occupation.
For like a lineman who is climbing up lines, climbing up ladders, you definitely want some upper body strength. Your lower body strength is necessary also, but being able to hold yourself for that long requires a little bit of upper body strength than the regular person.
And you see a lot of people who do this type of jobs coming out with a lot of... It's mostly back pain, okay? Because it's mostly back pain, because the muscles of the back need to be conditioned, they need to be toned to hold you up there.
There was a patient that came to meet me once that his complaint was back pain because he had been standing for long hours while interpreting at church. So, every Sunday, he notices that this back pain comes, and then he stays for a couple of days and then goes back because he has to stand and interpret with the preacher.
Gradually, the pain has...he had ... has reduced, but it's still there. Like, he only notices it about 45 minutes into the preaching usually.
Initially, when he started out doing it, it was about 30 minutes. So now, it's about 40 to 50 minutes into the preaching he starts noticing the back pain. That can be mitigated if you do a little bit of back-strengthening exercises.
You do back strengthening, you do a little bit of bicep, because you can't... you basically almost can't do back strengthening without a little bit of bicep.
And I see a lot of people, my coworkers, complaining about chairs that they sit on, back pain with the chairs that they sit on. You can't hold your body weight for a long, long period of time without good back strength.
The reason being, if you're... you are carrying all that with your torso, your upper body, you're carrying all that weight on your lower back, at some point your ligaments and your tendons are not going to be all that is necessary.
In fact, throughout the whole process, and they are not going to be all that is necessary to hold your weight and keep you in proper position in the proper sitting position throughout that process.
That's why, like, as in people, when you spend time at home, they just prefer lying down and doing all of that. But if you have a strong enough back, like not to brag.
I do have upper back pain sometimes that comes and goes, but I noticed that I never, ever let it deter me from going to the gym.
So, I have that upper back pain that comes and goes, but for people that don't engage in exercise, they're not regularly engaging in exercise, strength training exercise, they usually have that back pain, and it doesn't go, it only gets worse with time because you are not strengthening the muscles that are going to carry you, that are going to keep you throughout the whole process.
So, you need to engage in regular exercise, not just for your health, but for your muscles to be able to carry yourself throughout the whole process. So, that's why I have, I'm gradually learning to change my talking point.
So, next time when I meet people, um, I have better advice to give them. I would also advise you, regardless of what, um, occupation, what sphere of life, what whatever you're doing, try and engage in some exercise, try and engage in the American Heart Association's recommendation.
And it's not that much. If you're also on a weight loss journey, I encourage people to learn to count their calories. Learn to count your calories. It's the only way you can actually lose weight.
Learn to count your calories. Learn to, learn to be able to tolerate a little bit of hunger, and that's one thing that people don't talk about. I'm not saying starvation. Starvation is another thing.
It's another thing entirely. But when you eat, when you're supposed to eat is when you are hungry. Eat when you need it.
If you do that, that 10-minute run that you do every morning, that is about 150 calories. A 150-calorie run, it will be enough to offset a little bit of your calorie deficit.
It could put you in a 100-calorie deficit for that day. And if you are burning 100 calories every day for seven days, that's 700 calories. You do that for a month, burning 28, um, 2,800 to about 3,000, 3,000 calories for that whole month.
You do that for a year, you get what I'm talking about. Like that's, we are talking into the thousands, like. So, it's, it's a gradual thing. Don't rush it. That's why I tell people that for your weight loss goals, don't rush it.
Slowly, steadily reduce your weight. Although, one thing you need to understand is that usually as you're reducing your weight, your basal metabolic rate is also going to drop.
So, you're going to stop seeing significant results with the particular calorie deficit that you've been using, but with your drop in energy levels, that's your energy consumption, there's also a drop in your need for food.
I think there's this hormone, and I'm speaking from top of my head, I might check later on, there's this hormone leptin. Leptin is secreted by my medics, you know, this leptin is secreted by adipocytes.
So, gradually, you are going to be feeling satiated more satiated while you are losing weight. I think I need to check that up, but I can't totally speak for that, that's something that I might check up and make a video about later on.
So, that's my point, no matter your occupation, no matter what you're doing, no matter your weight, your fitness goal, of course, you're supposed to be engaging a little bit of exercise.
So, that's all I have for you today. Remember to like this video and subscribe to this channel if you have not subscribed to this channel. Share this video if you know someone who is giving themselves regular excuses about why they should not be engaging in exercise.
Get out there, do your thing, don't let anybody stop you, even if the person trying to stop you is you and your excuses for why you don't feel like you should be working out. Don't let that stop you.
I'm very, very happy because this is the third video that we're making today. So, that's about a week, this is the third episode of consistency.
Somebody commented that said that there's something wrong with my consistency. I don't know who you are. If you watched down to this point, I'm referring to you.
I forgot your name, I'm very bad with names, but I'm talking to you, I know I'm... I don't know who you are, but I'm seeing you, okay?
I'm watching you. Anyway, so that's all I have for you today. Don't forget to do all those things I told you to do and you, bye. Next time, I'll see you next time, see you in a couple of days. Peace.
Wow this means exercising is really important for labor🤔
Yeah...if you do a stressful job it doesn't mean you'll stop working out...
You're absolutely right
This is quite interesting. Many people are genuinely of the opinion that their daily struggles are enough as exercise. Like you said, you really don't know the amount of research that went into the American's Heart Association claim. What I can say is that there are counter claims.
Once I'm able to quote the research... I'll make a post about it. I'm doing my best to become more and more articulate.
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