the times | Tuesday July 21 2020 1GT 5
times
Weights or
running?
What
exercise type
are you?
The effects of a workout vary from
person to person. Here’s how to know
what’s right for you. By Peta Bee
paint-on lacquers to lasers and
medication delivered beneath the nail
are available privately, but natural
products such as tea tree oil have
absolutely no effect at all, so you do
need to see a foot specialist.”3
Don’t go barefoot
Anywhere you walk barefoot
you risk catching a verruca.
“Verrucae are caused by the
human papilloma virus,
which is very contagious and thrives
in damp environments,” McConnachie
says. “They are harmless, but can be
uncomfortable.” If you get one it
should disappear within six to twelve
months. Some varieties spread rapidly
or become very painful, in which case
you will need to see a chiropodist. “In
all cases keep the feet scrupulously
clean and dry,” McConnachie says.
“And never walk around barefoot.”
Peta Beehealth
to healthy
summer feet
1
Always use sun protector
factor on your feet
Stripy red feet are not a good
look, yet Emma McConnachie,
a podiatrist and spokeswoman
for the College of Podiatry, says that
most people still forget to apply sun
cream to their lower limbs. “The feet
and lower legs are a common area for
skin cancer, particularly in women, yet
we see badly sunburnt feet all the time
at this time of year,” she says.
Melanoma can appear anywhere on
the foot, including on the soles or
beneath a toenail, and feet should be
checked regularly. “Changes can occur
quite rapidly,” McConnachie says.
“And foot skin cancers typically get
caught much later than other types
because people don’t check their feet
fully or regularly enough.”2
Remove nail varnish
Leaving nail varnish on for
months can mask potential
problems. “A varnish will
prevent your toenails from
breathing,” McConnachie says. Feet
that are usually covered are prone to
fungal infections that are easy to treat
with over-the-counter medications,
but less so if they spread to the
toenails. “Permanently wearing nail
varnish means women don’t spot the
thickening and yellowing that is a sign
of fungal infection,” McConnachie
says. “And once a fungal infection is
in the nail it becomes tricky to treat.”
Oral medications are available, but
they present side effects in one in four
people. “Treatments ranging fromi t l t ld
GETTY IMAGESwho didn’t improve much with either
approach, but even that could be down
to the approach taken. “There wasn’t a
great deal of variation in sets,
repetitions, recoveries, exercises,
training frequency or exercise
intensity,” Blagrove says. “So those
who were deemed ‘non-responders’ to
aerobic training might actually find
they would have responded to a
different style of aerobic training, such
as adding some intervals or sprints.”
Green says many people will find
that they do get fitter once they ramp
things up. “Increasing the intensity
of training can move the dial and
produce greater benefit in those who
are low responders to standardised
prescriptions,” he says. However, what
you eat can also play a role. “It’s no
coincidence that studies show people
prefer exercising, and perform better
at it, in the middle of the afternoon,”
says Professor Jim McKenna, the
head of the Active Lifestyles Research
Centre at the Carnegie Faculty of
Leeds Beckett University. “Part of the
reason is that they are well fuelled,
having eaten a couple of meals by
then, compared with a pre-breakfast
workout, when energy levels would be
low after an overnight fast.”
Ultimately, there is no magic bullet
(or expensive testing kit) that will find
what works for you — it comes down
to basic trial and error. “All of those
who failed to respond to one form of
training in the trial were capable of
gaining benefit by switching to the
other,” Green says. “Switching from
endurance training, if that’s not
working for you, to strength training
might have some benefit.”
His next studies will attempt to look
into a greater variety of exercise as
well as the factors that influence
fitness. One, he suspects, is mindset.
“An exercise form that people enjoy
most they will adhere to for longest,”
he says. “I was a sprinter and field
hockey striker in bygone days who
always struggled to run the requisite
warm-up laps at training. Choose
something you enjoy.”If an
exercise
feels easy
the first
time,
stick with
it and
progress
says. “If something is easy to start,
then it’s hard to stop.”Embrace the fresh start effect
Whether your fitness soared or
plummeted during lockdown, you
should welcome what McKenna calls
the “next new’’ phase as a chance to
reboot motivation. “For some people
lockdown simplified daily life to make
home workouts more accessible and
easier to stick to,” he says. “Now we’ll
all have to revert to relying on the
complicated decision-making that
used to make exercise so challenging:
the planning of gym classes, packing
kit, driving to the gym, showering, and
so on.” Yet the prospect of starting
over can be a positive motivator —
use it as you would the new year to
make changes for the better.Don’t quit too soon
Even if you feel that one type of
workout is getting you nowhere, stick
with it for three months. “It would
certainly be foolish to do a programme
of aerobic or strength training for a
few weeks and then decide to give up
because you aren’t getting the results
you hoped for,” Blagrove says. “Some
people will improve very quickly to
a given dosage of exercise, but others
may need slightly longer or a different
approach to get the same results.”Embrace your weaknesses
If you favour one type of exercise
because you respond quickly to it
and enjoy it, don’t neglect others.
“It is important to remember that
both aerobic training and strength
training exercise are beneficial for
everybody’s health,” Blagrove says.
“Most of the participants in this latest
study by Green did improve — and,
in fact, 100 per cent of participants
improved by various amounts
following the resistance training.”
The bottom line? Vary the ratio, but
try to get a bit of everything inDo different workouts each month
The UK’s physical activity guidelines
suggest that we should aim for at least
150 minutes of moderate-intensity
activity a week or 75 minutes of
vigorous intensity activity a week.
If you fall short of that, it might be
worth switching the focus to a greater
variety of exercise, according to
a study published in the journal
Translational Medicine in January.
Dr Susan Malone, a researcher at
New York University’s Rory Meyers
College of Nursing, and her team
analysed the exercise habits of more
than 9,000 adults who had completed
the US National Health and Nutrition
Examination Survey. Malone found
that the greater variety of exercise
people did, the more activity they
achieved. And those who tried three
different activities a month were the
most likely to hit their 150-minute
weekly target. “If we refocus people
to more varieties of exercise, they
might have more success reaching
targets,” Malone says.Go easy on yourself
McKenna says that we often make the
mistake of selecting a class because it
is fashionable or tough. “If exercise
feels like a form of punishment, then
it has drop-out written all over it,” he
says. “Studies on emotional forecasting
have shown that positive emotions to
an experience are short-term, whereas
negative emotions have a darker side
and linger for longer.
“If you really don’t enjoy a workout
there will be emotional and biological
signals to avoid it. If something feels
easy the first time you do it, that is
a good sign, so stick with it and
progress.” The principal role of
dopamine, the so-called happy
hormone released by the brain
after exercise, is to prompt us to find
where to get it again. “Our brains
and bodies will want to keep doing
activities that we enjoy,” McKennaHow to avoid workout failure