My life-long relationship with exercise

As you have read in many of my prior blog posts, I believe very strongly in the overall health and also the specific heart health benefits of frequent exercise. I've been exercising for years. It has not been consistent or easy but it's always somehow a part of my life. Throughout high school I played organized team sports. In college, I played intramural and pickup basketball. I also was introduced to weight lifting in college. In medical school, although time began to be more and more scarce, I still wanted to and made time to play pickup basketball and intermittently work out in the gym. I also started mountain biking. I started running short and medium distances in my final year of medical school. During residency, I continued to run short and middle distances but lost touch with playing team sports. During fellowship, I continued to run (I did find time to train and run a 1/2 marathon) but did so sparingly and inconsistently. I tried playing in a basketball league but had difficulty due to my ridiculously busy schedule. The first 9 years of being in private practice and being the father of three young girls, I exercised very infrequently (although I thought about it every day). The only consistent thing was playing doubles tennis every Tuesday night during the Fall, Winter and Spring months. However, the last year has been different. Instead of sticking with what I had been doing for the past 15 years, I decided to start shaking things up. It sta...
Source: Dr Portnay - Category: Cardiology Authors: Source Type: blogs