BIKE: Many people think: I ride my mountain bike or go jogging; that's enough for my fitness. Are they right?
MARK LAUREN: It's definitely better than doing nothing. It's great that people go cycling or jogging. But if you want to get fit and healthy as you get older, you need something more comprehensive.
Comprehensive?
Ideally, you should train all your different joint functions. Take your spine, for example. When you sit on a bike, your spine is bent. And you stay in this bent position. But you want to train your spine much more comprehensively. You want to stretch it, bend it sideways and rotate it. The same applies to the shoulders and hips. When Biking you remain in one position and only stretch and bend your legs.
What advice do you have for bikers?
I recommend a workout that strengthens and mobilises all joint functions.
At 20, I probably don't have any problems with my joint function - it might be different from 40. What role does age play?
When you're young, you can get away with a lot. You can also neglect your joint functions. But the older you get, the more important it becomes to strengthen and mobilise your joint functions. This is the only way to ensure that you stay healthy and fit in old age and, above all, that you can move without pain. If you want to move around pain-free at 70 or 80, you need to train your joint functions - full stop!
A few years ago, cardio was all the hype. Now muscles are all the rage. It is said that you have to train with weights from the age of 40 at the latest to stay fit, healthy and mobile. What is true now?
Yes, trends come and go and swing from one extreme to the other. At first, cardio training, endurance and jogging were the big thing. Then came flexibility. And now it's the turn of strength. In truth, it's about everything: cardio, flexibility and strength. In other words: a bit of everything - as is so often the case, the middle way is the best.
And what about the much talked about weight training?
Strength training becomes more important the older you get. But it doesn't have to be done with weights and certainly not on weight machines. If you can't do 25-30 good push-ups at 50, 60 or 70, why should you train with weights? If you can't do 20 one-legged lunges, why should you sit down at a machine and train?
Do you think your body weight is enough?
Your body is completely sufficient. The good thing about the Bodyweight exercises is that you learn to use your body instead of operating fitness machines. Bodyweight exercises train your balance. And you train your coordination. Coordination is perhaps the most important aspect. But this is rarely talked about - everyone talks about strength and endurance.
Why is coordination so important?
Good coordination is the basis for all movements and for your mobility. You improve your coordination - and this brings us back to the starting point - by training your joint functions. If you can coordinate your joints well and have a full range of motion, you will find it much easier to learn new sports and movements.
You can see this in older people who are becoming increasingly clumsy.
Yes, these people find it difficult to control the transitions between lying down, kneeling and standing. As we get older, we lose the fundamental ability to get up from the floor or lie down. It's what we did all the time as children and young people. We lose this ability because we no longer practise it, i.e. rolling from a supine position to a prone position, then getting to our knees and finally standing up.
Do you practise these transitions yourself?
All the time. I have integrated these exercises into my everyday life. There are so many different ways to stand up. It's not just training, it's also fun.
You are an advocate of micro-training. You call it the 9-minute workout. But critics say that's rubbish. They claim that it lacks the intensity to trigger a training effect at all. What do you say to that?
I don't agree with that at all. I think that most people do far too much at the beginning. Then they have monster muscle soreness for a week and stop exercising again.
Then the mini-training is the solution?
Especially as a beginner, you only need a small training stimulus for your body to adapt. Logically, the more advanced your training level, the greater the stimulus needs to be. In other words: an Olympic athlete won't make any progress with my 9-minute workout. But for the average person who hasn't done any specific training before, who has only cycled or jogged, the 9-minute workout with their own body weight is plenty. They don't need any more. If you do more, you'll only waste your energy and end up with sore muscles.
Especially as people don't have time anyway.
Exactly. For example, if you set yourself a timer in the office and get up every 30 minutes and do an exercise with 10 to 20 repetitions, that's a great way to train. Especially if you don't just do, say, push-ups, but different exercises throughout the working week.
Dimitri Lehner
Editor
