66: Exercise and Immunity

The InForm Fitness Podcast

Since the early 1900’s, scientists have been debating the question, “Does exercise increase or decrease our risk of catching passing infections, and the question has never been more salient than now, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic.
For some, self-isolation has ended their usual exercise habits; for others, a sudden excess of free time is allowing them to train longer and more frequently than ever before. Neither approach, it turns out, is ideal.
The immune system is very responsive to exercise, the extent of which depends on the duration, intensity and volume of the physiological stress imposed by the workload. Mounting evidence indicates that regular, physical activity and structured exercise reduces the incidence of many chronic diseases in older age, including communicable diseases such as viral and bacterial infections, as well as non-communicable diseases such as cancer and chronic inflammatory disorders.

This is a lively and encouraging episode as Adam and Mike discuss how they determine the ‘correct’ dosage of exercise. This discussion also provides new insights on the interactions between exercise, nutrition, and our immunity. As always, your feedback and suggestions are always welcome.

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66 Inform_Corona 2_April 27 Transcript

Arlene [00:00:01] The Inform Fitness Podcast with Adam Zickerman man and co-host Mike Rogers is a presentation of Inform Fitness Studios, a small family of personal training facilites specializing in safe, efficient, high intensity strength training. On our bi monthly podcast, Adam and Mike discussed the latest findings in the areas of exercise, nutrition and recovery with leading experts and scientists. We aim to debunk the popular misconceptions and the urban myths that are so prevalent in the fields of health and fitness and to replace those sacred cows with scientific based up to the minute information on a variety of subjects. We'll cover exercise protocols and techniques. Nutrition, sleep, recovery. The role of genetics in the response to exercise and much more. On this episode, Adam and Mike discuss today's science specifically in the relatively new field of exercise immunology and whether it supports the idea of remaining active and exercising even as the incidence of new virus cases continue to grow.

Adam [00:01:17] We've been saying it all along about exercise and how it can affect our immune system and stuff like that. Too much, too little, kind of like Goldilocks and the three Bears, we gotta find what's just right. That's what the research has shown. There is this sweet spot and I have to kind of find a balance each individual.

Adam [00:01:33] Hello, everybody. Mike and I are back for another episode of this Covid 19 podcast. It's been about two weeks since we recorded that first one and it seems like two years, quite honestly, so much has happened in that time.

Mike [00:01:44] You know, Adam, remember, we weren't. It was a little debate over whether we were going to stay open a little bit in the beginning because we're not actually classified as a gym. And I could be wrong about this. But I heard anecdotally that the first phase of the roll back to normalcy, I think gyms are included with that. I think that they see that it's very, very important for people to be getting their body moving. It's for their for their overall health. But I've talked to all the clients all week, and they are finding incredible value in what we're figuring out how to do with them in this setting. But a lot of them, they can't wait to get back on some of the machines, people say they want those machines back, you know, and that's just the way it is.

Adam [00:02:32] And I do I spend a lot of time doing spine exercise with our client, with the neck extension machines, our lower back machines. These are tools that it's very, very hard to replicate, especially when you're not with somebody to tell somebody over the phone, over the Internet, how to do an esoteric and somewhat riskier type of exercise, such as the neck or the lower back, it becomes problematic. We're missing that. I mean, the whole reason I started Inform Fitness in the first place is because I thought we'd be able to apply exercise a lot better than the conventional ways. You know, everything we're doing over there over the Internet are conventional ways of exercise, using conventional tools. And used properly you can have a very good workout, but that wasn't enough for me in the long run. For me, I wanted to just do something that that you can't get anywhere else. But that's another topic. I am finding that, Mike, that, you know, this is this is a good even better than good. It's a very good stimulus for exercise. But like you said, they're they're missing some of the cool stuff that we have, which kind of brings us to the topic about why are we imploring that our clients continue their exercise program? Well, you know, when I started the business back in '97, very soon thereafter, I wrote a book called The E Myth. I don't know how many people remember that. It was a very popular book, major, major best seller by Gerber. When I read that, I realized that what we sell is not necessarily exercise. I mean, that's our product. The E Myth made me ask this question. If you'd asked me before I read the E myth, what we sell as Inform Fitness. I would say exercise, personal training, exercise. That's our product. What we really actually sell is freedom, freedom from injury, freedom from too much time spent exercising. And that also includes freedom from illness as a result of overtraining or not training enough. That's what we're going to talk about today. Exercise and its effect on our immunity. I couldn't think of a more salient conversation about immunity during this time of the Covid 19 pandemic. Not to say that we're giving medical advice for sure. But it is an interesting subject to find out what we know now about exercise and its effect on our immunity. To be fair, let me start by saying it's not conclusive. There's a lot of evidence pointing towards the benefits of certain amounts of exercise. But it's certainly not conclusive. There are a lot of confounders and a lot more research that has to be done. Speaking of research, immunology has been really catching up the last 10, 20 years. Immunology and and how it relates to exercise is a relatively new field and we're learning a lot on a regular basis. Why I think it's so salient right now is because now that people are basically home, not able to go to the gym, not able to do even go to a park. At this point, a lot of places, even parks are being closed, although recently I heard we're recording this podcast today on the 20th of April. And I'm hearing now that certain states, certain areas are actually opening up parks. However, most parks are still closed and people are either doing one or two things as a result of just being home or not working. They're either not working at all eating like crazy, going back to the comfort foods. Then you have those types that are just like bored as can be and they're just exercising, exercising, exercising, even if it's right in their house. Jumping jacks, going crazy treadmills, w...