Exertion is only half of the equation: a synthesis of findings in evolutionary movement, exercise biochemistry and chronobiology is shaping new thinking on fitness. Get ready for Cycles™ and the LifeWaves® Program and discover what's been missing from your workouts

For some time it has been said that exercise is good medicine. However, the full extent of what that implies has just taken a bold leap forward--and just in time. Predictions for the public's general health over the next decade run from the gloomy to the disastrous as epidemic rates of obesity, diabetes and chronic illness grow at unprecedented rates, due in large part to sedentary living, unhealthy diets and a host of daily stressors.

This AF exclusive gathers new findings in human performance physiology along with some disturbing news--the adverse effects of endurance exercise. It appears exercise truly is good medicine, but only if the recovery side of the equation is addressed with equal training considerations.

It's 7 a.m. in a small, rural New Jersey town. Linda, a 54-year-old CEO of a nonprofit organization, bypasses a cup of coffee and heads straight for her exercise bike. Not a particularly unusual ritual, two out of 10 Americans duplicate this action as they pursue their morning workout. However, here's where Linda's story takes a different turn.

She straps on her "talking" heart rate monitor, listens for directions and climbs on a stationary bicycle. She pedals with full-out effort for just under a minute. Her forehead is dewy from sweat, breathing audible and heart rate topping a max target. Suddenly the "coach" instructs her to stop. There's no cool-down or slow pedaling. She closes her eyes and grows calm and quiet, listening to instructions from a headset attached to a real-time sensing device which monitors her heart rate and recovery responses. Within a few minutes, her eyes pop open and she bursts into full action again. This stop-and-start cycle is repeated six more times.

To the casual observer, what appears to be a woman doing a radically quick set of intervals is really a brand new form of exercise known as Cycles[TM]. It is embedded within a holistic lifestyle program called LifeWaves[R], designed to adjust your circadian rhythm (i.e., your body's natural 24-hour "clock," which organizes all biological processes, including metabolic rises and dips, blood pressure peaks and valleys, hormonal releases, etc. [Refinetti 2000]).

"The amazing thing about Cycles[TM]," describes Linda, "is not just that I look forward to exercise for the first time in my life, but that my life and health completely turned around as a result of it." With her doctor's approval, Linda is off all medications (including insulin), her pain has disappeared, energy level is excellent and mood has lifted. Just four months earlier, Linda complained of chronic depression bordering on suicide. Tired of struggling with unstable diabetes for 22 years, she was at the throes of uncontrollable blood sugar swings, often topping 380--despite multiple diabetic medications, an anti-depressant and daily insulin injections. She faced a growing number of disease-related disabilities, such as retinopathy and peripheral neuropathy. Leg pain, gastric distress, eye surgery--all of it was becoming more than she could bear.

Then, concerned family members talked her into trying the LifeWaves[R] Program. It was not a cure-all, just a way to hopefully manage some of her illness. After all, scientific literature has well documented the benefits of exercise for diabetics. Like countless other people, she knew she should exercise, but conventional exercise guidelines discouraged her with their insistence on long, sustained efforts.

Her first few sessions with the LifeWaves[R] Program were tough. A dampened response of heart rate acceleration and recovery reflected her deconditioned state. Pedaling hard for a minute at an intensity level of four to six out of 10 (RPE) barely nudged her flattened, invariable heart rate upward. However, over the course of the next two weeks, Linda slowly noticed changes. Her heart rate range broadened and variability improved. Heart rate variability, the measure of change in the heart's beat-to-beat rate, remains the only common factor associated with healthy individuals in the long-respected Framingham Heart Study.

Within three weeks, Linda had a renewed vitality and slept through the night. She was no longer depressed and felt in synch with life. Within two months, her blood glucose fell to a normal range with rare spikes. Without a doubt, these tiny doses of exercise, none longer than a minute--almost homeopathic compared to conventional programs--were actually making a difference in her life. Today, she is convinced Cycles[TM] saved her life.

Putting Cyclic Exercise to the Test

This isn't the first time I've reported the benefits of cyclic exercise in American Fitness. Last year, some exercise research presented at a symposium in Finland flabbergasted me. A study of 10 healthy adult women, ages 32 to 58, examined the impact of individualized cyclic exercise on physiological variability (Goldsmith 2000). The study was designed to train not only the exertion (i.e., arousal) phase, but also the relaxation (i.e., recovery) phase of exercise in a wave-like or pulsatile fashion.