A long term university study recently published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine studied 2560 Finnish men from the ages of 42 to 61 for a period of over 16 years. The study was conducted to see if exercising reduced the risk of cancer.

Each individual’s physical activity levels were measured and assessed using frequency, duration and intensity as the key variables:

• Frequency - how many times a week they participated in the physical activity.

• Duration - on average how long they performed the activity

• Intensity - how hard they performed their physical activity of choice.

After collecting all of the data from the 16 year study, it was found that men who exercised at moderate to high intensity levels for at least 30 minutes a day decreased their chances of getting cancer by half, compared to men who didn’t.  That’s pretty amazing!  Here’s more…

A higher use of oxygen consumption during physical activity is linked to a reduction in the level of illness in a person and their likelihood of dying from cancer.

An increase of 1.2 metabolic units (oxygen consumption) was related to a decrease in cancer mortality mainly due to lung and gastrointestinal cancers, after the researchers took into account age, alcohol consumption, smoking, body mass index and energy, fibre and fat intake.

The higher the oxygen consumption the more intense the activity.  So in essence,  it means the higher the intensity of the workout the lower your chances of getting cancer.

Even though the scientific reasons as to why high intensity lowers the risk of cancer are not known, there’s a strong link to disease and oxygen deprivation (i.e. low oxygen levels in your body).  Studies have shown that oxygen is a vital part of maintaining healthy cells in your body and a lack of sufficient oxygen makes your cells unhealthy and susceptible to diseases.  And due to a more sedentary lifestyle, most of us do suffer from low levels of oxygen.

The best way to combat low oxygen levels in your body and give your cells an oxygen boost is by working out at high intensities.

Activities performed at high intensity cause your body to go into a oxygen deficit for a brief period, which forces you to take in more oxygen to make up for the deficit. This is why exercising at high intensities is more beneficial when it comes to increasing your body’s oxygen levels…even compared to long steady state cardio.

The benefits of exercising at higher intensities have long been known to be very effective for weight loss, building lean muscle and improving overall fitness, but the reason I wanted to tell you about this groundbreaking study is because it’s the first time anyone’s looked at the correlation of exercise intensity and prevention of disease.

So, now that there’s evidence that the way you exercise can help protect you from deadly diseases like cancer, are you ready to crank up the sweat-factor in your workouts?  I’d love to hear from you, so please post your comments below.

P.S.  I get a lot of questions from people who aren’t sure if they’re working out a high intensity.  Here’s a hint…If you’re workouts last longer than 30 minutes, there’s

no way you’re working out at a high intensity.  Most people can’t last more than 20-30 minutes on the main set of a truly intense workout.  Even though intense workouts are shorter, they’ll get you MUCH better results (it’s a win-win if you ask me).  This is why all of the workouts in MAX Workouts are programmed in a circuit style strength training format using full body exercises and interval sprint training formats to help maximize intensity. And, if you’ve never worked out like this before—don’t worry—all of the workouts are scalable so you can start at your own pace and gradually progress up as your body gets accustomed to doing the workouts.  Click here to learn more.