Can working out a few weeks prior to diving prevent a lot of medical accidents?

[Trace Malinowski]

A 2012 study by the National Cancer Institute found that moderately obese people lived 3.1 years longer than normal weight people. The European Heart Journal published a study that showed when obese people had blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar and other indicators fall within a healthy range, they are at no greater risk of dying from heart disease or cancer than those who are of normal weight.

Can You Be Fat But Fit?

Of course, there are other studies that say the opposite, but such research is similar to telling us eggs and milk will kill us one day and prolong life the next. As Chrisch says, "Enjoy life."

 

[PatW]

Trying to get into shape quickly is a good way to injure yourself. Fitness is more of a matter of lifestyle. Our society is in love with quick fixes. Diets often do not work because people lose the weight by extreme dieting. Once they lose the weight, they revert back to their bad eating habits and gain all the weight back and usually more than all of it.

It is better to have a routine of weight lifting and cardiovascular exercise.

You need the strength from weight lifting because diving means lifting heavy gear, walking around with it on a pitching boat, and climbing up a bouncing ladder loaded down with stuff.

Diving itself is not strenuous. But it does stress the circulatory system. So it is good to have a decent level of cardiovascular fitness.

And those emergencies do happen. Being strong and fit can come in really handy when you need it.

That being said, I have seen plenty of elderly divers who are not in great shape do fine. They just dive within their limits. If conditions look a bit extreme, they just take a pass for the day.

 

[KeithG]

Trying to get into shape quickly is a good way to injure yourself. Fitness is more of a matter of lifestyle. Our society is in love with quick fixes. Diets often do not work because people lose the weight by extreme dieting. Once they lose the weight, they revert back to their bad eating habits and gain all the weight back and usually more than all of it.

It is better to have a routine of weight lifting and cardiovascular exercise.

You need the strength from weight lifting because diving means lifting heavy gear, walking around with it on a pitching boat, and climbing up a bouncing ladder loaded down with stuff.

Diving itself is not strenuous. But it does stress the circulatory system. So it is good to have a decent level of cardiovascular fitness.

And those emergencies do happen. Being strong and fit can come in really handy when you need it.

That being said, I have seen plenty of elderly divers who are not in great shape do fine. They just dive within their limits. If conditions look a bit extreme, they just take a pass for the day.

I agree. It seems the OP is attempting to justify a quick fix approach to poor health. It takes years of neglect to become a couch potato. You can not fix that in a week or two.

The body reacts slowly to changes. If the changes are extreme (too much excercise too quickly) then the body takes extreme (unhealthy) measures to protect itself.

I just returned to recreational hockey after a knee injury. Part of my rehab was a set of exercises designed to build muscle strength to better spport my knee. The physio was very clear that I should only do the excercises three times a week. More often would cause muscle stress and slow (or even stop) the process. The excercises were unrelated to the healing process. They were designed to build strength to prevent a similar injury in the future. It took a full month before there was a measurable increase in joint support.

 

[Duke Dive Medicine]

That being said, what are your thoughts on this statement:
It is more dangerous (in terms of a medical heart attack related event) for a "skinny" person to dive if he has not performed a strenuous activity for a long period of time vs an overweight/obese diver who has been actively jogging daily for the last couple of weeks.

That's a pretty broad question. Actively jogging for two weeks isn't going to do much for an obese person as far as decreasing risk factors, so of the two hypothetical divers, the obese person is probably at higher risk, but that's VERY general and doesn't account for other risk factors like family history.

Best regards,
DDM

 

[BradMM]

It's my understanding that the current wisdom points to poor cardio fitness (& other risk factors) as being more problematic than being overweight. Here's an article from DAN on cardiac health & diving.

Would like to see the article but link didn't work for me. Tried copying URL, no go.

Thanks

 

[BradMM]

BTW, the reason I was even looking over here was because I suggested a Diving Fitness forum over in the Supporters area. I don't know how often these questions come up but I think they are important for everyone, especially those of us over 60. As for me, I had my fitness epiphany back about 17-18 years ago and have been working out pretty regularly ever since as well as eating a very good diet starting with my morning protein shake with home grown organic spinach in it. I swim a mile a few times a week and do weight training but I'm still very cognizant about fitness and wellness issues.

 

[NYCNaiad]

Would like to see the article but link didn't work for me. Tried copying URL, no go.

Thanks

I'm sorry. I incorrectly included random text instead of a link. I think this is what I meant to include which links to an entire area on DAN re: the heart & diving.