Can gym fitness extend life?

There is no absolute conclusion in the academic world at present, but regular gym training that adapts to individual physical conditions can indeed reduce the risk of disease by improving metabolism, maintaining muscle mass, and improving cardiopulmonary function, and indirectly helps extend healthy lifespan. However, once the training method is wrong, it may cause irreversible damage to the body.

I have been going to the gym for almost 8 years and have seen too many real-life examples. There is a 68-year-old Uncle Wang in the gym near my home. After retirement, he insists on going 3 times a week, 40 minutes on the elliptical machine and 20 minutes of light weight resistance each time. Last year, the physical examination indicators were better than those of many 40-year-old middle-aged people. Even the doctor asked him if he exercised all year round and said that his physical condition was at least 10 years younger than his actual age. In fact, the Lancet published relevant research in the past few years. Maintaining 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobics combined with about two times of resistance training per week can reduce all-cause mortality by about 30%. The fixed equipment in the gym has a relatively fixed force trajectory, and there are professional coaches who can help adjust the details of the movements. For ordinary fitness practitioners, it is easier to persist and less prone to sports injuries than practicing blindly at home or running outdoors without paying attention to posture.

However, we have seen many counterexamples in recent years, and there have always been different voices in the academic community. There have been news before about a fitness blogger in his 20s blindly deadlifting heavy weights, which caused sudden death from burst blood vessels. Last year, there was a young man in the gym I often go to. In order to build abdominal muscles in the summer, there was a young man who soaked for more than 2 hours a day and took five or six kinds of supplements. In the end, his transaminases exceeded the standard and he was hospitalized. Long-term tracking of professional bodybuilding groups shows that many athletes who prepare for high-intensity competitions for a long time and abuse anabolic drugs have a lower average life expectancy than ordinary people of the same age.

To put it bluntly, a gym is just a place that provides professional training equipment. It’s just like buying a good-quality iron pot. Whether you can cook healthy dishes or junk food heavy in oil and salt depends on how the user operates it. People with underlying diseases such as high blood pressure and coronary heart disease may do high-intensity spinning and heavy bench presses, which may easily lead to cardiovascular and cerebrovascular accidents. It is safer to walk slowly at home. ； If ordinary people are eager for quick success, weight comparison, and quick results, long-term overtraining will lead to soaring cortisol and decreased immunity, which is also laying waste to the body.

In the past few years, I have gradually given up my previous pursuit of "how heavy can I bench press and how thick can my arm circumference be". I stop every time I practice until I sweat a little and my muscles feel sore. After all, we ordinary people go to the gym to live a more comfortable and high-quality life. If we ruin our bodies just for vanity, then we are really putting the cart before the horse.