Studies investigating the relationship between physical activity and mental health are mostly limited to adults. In adults, physical activity has been shown to have a short term mood-enhancing effect. Moderate levels of intensity and duration of physical activity have been shown to have a stress-reducing effect, but an additional increase of either the duration or [...]
It is known that lipoprotein levels are directly related to the process of atherosclerosis and therefore to the occurrence of CVD. Although total serum cholesterol has been found to be related to CVD, its atherogenic effect depends on the structure of the cholesterol or, in other words, on the ratio between low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL) [...]
One of the problems in assessing the prevalence of physical inactivity (and therefore the estimation of the PAR) is that it is difficult to define physical inactivity. Most of the time, physical inactivity is defined as ‘not reaching the guidelines for healthy physical activity’. However in the beginning of the 1990s, Cale & Almond (1992) [...]
The American College of Sports Medicine developed an opinion statement on the amount of physical activity needed for optimal functional capacity and health. They proposed that children and adolescents should obtain 20–30 min of vigorous exercise each day. In the beginning of the 1990s this recommendation was refined by the International Consensus Conference on Physical [...]
Although it is not the intention to review the many combinations and permutations that can arise by manipulating the components of a resistance training programme, this section will highlight some of the main points that have some scientific foundation within the literature. As it is not within the scope of this chapter to identify all [...]