Healthy Justice...

Do you like going for a 30 minute run?  How about an hour?  Unless I am trying to get somewhere, I get bored after about 3 minutes. 

Years ago, I attended a police academy.  Two or three times a week we would do Physical Training (PT).  We would run at a moderate pace (though with stress stimuli added, making it seem like a faster pace) for approximately 45 minutes.  We ran through the hills and in the desert.  (Sometimes, we would run through the sand of a dry creek bed, and the staff would yell, "It's like running on the beach...you just have to imagine the ocean part!").

At the end of the academy, a recruit asked the staff why we did all the PT, when we would (most likely) not be running after a bad guy for 6-7 miles at a moderate pace.  The answer was - they were not training us to catch bad guys, they were training us for a healthy lifestyle.

“Retirement is tough for cops. Their average life expectancy after retirement is five years, according to '91 FBI statistics. Psychotherapist and former police officer Albert Seng says a number of cops go through a grief process in disconnecting from "a lifestyle rather than a job." Once you're out of it, you're really out of it. You're on the outside.”

"In the U.S., non-police males have a life-expectancy of 73 years. Policemen in the U.S. have a life expectancy of 53-66 years, depending on which research one decides to embrace."

Longevity Vs. Retirement Age

“Dr. Ephrem (Siao Chung) Cheng provided the important results in the following table from an actuarial study of life span vs. age at retirement. The study was based on the number of pension checks sent to retirees of Boeing Aerospace.“

Age at Retirement (Column A) Average Age at Death (Colmun B)

  A       B
49.9   86.0
51.2   85.3
52.5   84.6
53.8   83.9
55.1   83.2
56.4   82.5
57.2   81.4
58.3   80.0
59.2   78.5
60.1   76.8
61.0   74.5
62.1   71.8
63.1   69.3
64.1   67.9
65.2   66.8

“This indicates that for people retired at the age of 50, their average life span is 86; whereas for people retired at the age of 65, their average life span is only 66.8. An important conclusion from this study is that for every year one works beyond age 55, one loses 2 years of life span on average.”

So...as of this posting, I'm announcing my retirement!  Just kidding.  However, back to the original point - "Long Distance Running" and a "Healthy Life." 

From Wikipedia:

"The Tabata Method uses 20 seconds of ultra-intense exercise followed by 10 seconds of rest, repeated continuously for 4 minutes (8 cycles). In the original study, athletes using this method trained 4 times per week, plus another day of steady-state training, and obtained gains similar to a group of athletes who did steady state training 5 times per week. The steady state group had a higher VO2max at the end, but the Tabata group had started lower and gained more overall. Also, only the Tabata group had gained anaerobic capacity benefits..."

"...increases the resting metabolic rate for the following 24 hours due to excess post-exercise oxygen consumption, and may improve maximal oxygen consumption more effectively than doing only traditional, long aerobic workouts..."

"...Long aerobic workouts have been promoted as the best method to reduce fat, as fatty acid utilization usually occurs after at least 30 minutes of training. High Intensity Interval Training is somewhat counterintuitive in this regard, but has nonetheless been shown to burn fat more effectively..."

 

I prefer the "Tabata" method because 1) It may actually be better for you and 2) the rest part is like a small nap in the middle of the workout, and I like naps...