Get off the couch, before it's too late!: All the Whys and Wherefores of Exercise

Get off the couch

This book is an exhortation for us all to make regular exercise an essential part of our daily life. The vast majority of our citizens takes too little exercise to promote good health although many believe that they do take enough exercise. As with food we have an exaggerated belief in our healthy behaviour. The result is that the previously steady increase in life expectancy of the past few decades has fallen recently and the period of poor health and dependence at the end of life has increased.

The vulnerability of the elderly who have taken too little exercise for their own good has been thrown into stark reality by the Covid pandemic. Most of those who became very unwell or died from covid-19 were overweight, unfit and/or suffered one or more degenerative diseases of old age - all the long-term results of being inactive.

One reason for taking too little physical activity for good health may be ignorance of the importance of regular exercise for disease prevention, longevity and most of all a healthy and enjoyable old age. This book describes some important aspects of exercise such as normal responses, measurement of exercise dose, measurement of physical fitness, how much exercise really we take and how much we should take as part of a truly healthy lifestyle.

The really essential message of this book is that if we are insufficiently active we put ourselves at risk of a number of degenerative diseases. These in turn increase the risk of premature death and of later life frailty. If you want to make a New Year resolution, look no further than getting off the couch before it is too late!

Get off the couchAbout the authorHugh Bethell MBE MD FRCP FRCGPDr Hugh Bethell qualified in medicine in 1966. His early career included a stint as a Cardiac Registrar at Charing Cross Hospital where he first encountered the use of exerccise for treating heart disease - ground breaking at the time. In 1974 Hugh abandoned cardiology and entered general practice in Alton in Hampshire. There he set up an exercise programme in the Alton Sports Centre for patients recovering from heart attacks and other cardiac ailments and operations. Since then he has written extensively on exercise for heart disease including two books, 9 book chapters, 65 original scientific papers and 76 review articles. In the early 90s he was the driver for setting up the British Association for Cardiac Rehabilitation (now the British Association for Cardiac Prevention and Rehabilitation) and became its first President. Over the past 12 years he has expanded the Cardiac Rehab activities to embrace those with other problems, particularly those which increase the risk of coronary disease - high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes et al. He has also become particularly interested in the exercise treatment of degenerative diseases, disability and frailty in later life, all of which are promoted by an inactive lifestyle. His aim is to encourage regular physical activity for all for disease prevention, increasing longevity and most of all leading to a healthy and enjoyable old age.