Soccer Dads Improve Their Blood Pressure, Weight, and Body Fat

Europeans know that playing soccer is just as aerobically taxing as playing NFL football.  A new study, reported in the Scandinavian Journal Medicine and Science in Sport, gives the results of a study conducted in Denmark and Switzerland on men with a mild degree of high blood pressure.   

Inactive men with mild hypertension, aged 25 to 45, were allocated to take soccer practice, running training, or no additional activity.  Soccer practice and running training were 1-hour sessions 2-3 times a week for 12 weeks.  There were 15 men each in the exercise groups and 15 men in the inactive group.

Systolic and diastolic blood pressure decreased in all groups, but the decrease was greater in the soccer group (-9 mmHg) than in the inactive controls (-4 mmHg).  Body weights were decreased by 3.5 lb and 3.3 lb, and total fat mass estimates were decreased by 4.4 lb and 3.5 lb in the soccer and running groups, respectively.  There were no comparable changes in the inactive group.

Supine heart rate variability – a health marker of the nervous control of the heart – was increased by soccer practice and running, with no change in inactive participants. Total cholesterol decreased in the soccer group but was unaltered in the running and inactive groups. Finally, maximal cardiac stroke volume improved in the soccer and running groups (+13% and +10%, respectively), but not in the inactive groups.

This study shows that soccer training, which contains intermittent high-intensity exercise – aerobic, strength, and balance exercise – has positive effects similar to, or better than, those produced by the more traditional running training.  And it’s more fun, too.  Just ask your kids.

Comments

[tominono]

Humorous...I never had acne prior to I hit age of puberty and my diet plan was the same then as it's now.

Humorous, there are? hardly any documented instances of prepubescent children with acne.

All just a large coincidence...it is truly the diet, correct?

Whilst diet _may_ play a part in aggravating the preexisting acne situation, suggesting that it is generally the chief system for that illness is sheer idiocy
traffic ultimatum