Medieval suits of armour were so exhausting to wear that they could have affected the outcomes of famous battles, a study suggests.

Scientists monitored volunteers fitted with 15th Century replica armour as they walked and ran on treadmills.

They found that the subjects used high levels of energy, bore immense weight on their legs and suffered from restricted breathing.

The research is published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

The effect of the heavy armour was so great, that the researchers believe it may have have had an impact on the Battle of Agincourt.

In this famous Anglo-French conflict of 1415, French knights were defeated by their English counterparts, despite the fact that they heavily outnumbered them.

The researchers say their study suggests that the armour-clad French, who had to trek through a muddy field to meet the stationary English line, were so slowed and exhausted by their march that they would have stood little chance.

Lead researcher Dr Graham Askew, from the University of Leeds, said: “You look at these suits of armour, and they weigh between 30 and 50kg, so it is a huge fraction of the wearer’s body weight.”

Running battle

In the 15th Century, as the arms race progressed with the development of new and powerful weapons such as the longbow and crossbow, armour too evolved.

In late Medieval Europe, these bulky battle suits were principally constructed from interlocking steel plates, covering the soldier from head to toe.

But with the added protection came extra weight and cumbersomeness – and while researchers have always realised that this would have impaired a soldier’s performance, nobody until now has quantified by how much.

To study this, researchers asked four participants, who regularly re-enact battles for the Royal Armouries in Leeds, to don their exact-replica armour from England, Gothic Germany and Italy and get onto a treadmill.

By recording how much oxygen they took in and carbon dioxide they produced, the team was able to calculate how much energy they were using. High-speed cameras also helped the researchers to study how the volunteers were using their limbs.

Dr Askew, who carried out the research with colleagues from the University of Oxford and the University of Milan, said: “Our main finding was that it was extremely expensive in terms of the amount of energy used to move in the armour.”

The team found that walking and running with the armour used up twice as much energy as doing the same thing without any armour.

The breast and back plates of the medieval armour also affected breathing: instead of being able to take long, deep breaths while they worked up a sweat, the volunteers were forced to take frequent, shallow breaths, and this too used up more energy.

Leg pains

The scientists also looked at how the volunteers performed while wearing armour compared with carrying the equivalent load on their backs, which is similar to the weight a modern soldier might carry in their backpack.

Dr Askew said: “We found there was a big difference: it is much more ‘expensive’ to carry the load as a suit of armour than it is to carry the load in a backpack.

“We were interested to find out why that was – and one of the main reasons is that if you wear a suit of armour, a lot of the weight is carried on the legs – about 7-8kg of it.

“And this means when you walk and you swing your legs, you are requiring a lot more muscular effort, and that costs you a lot more energy.”

The team said their findings had given an insight into the battlefield trade-off between added protection alongside increased manoeuvrability and fitness to fight.

Dr Askew explained: “Yes, they could have removed the leg parts of the armour, but it might have meant they would have been cut on the leg and killed that way.”

He added though, that this may not have been such a problem in the 16th Century.

With the advent of guns, hand-to-hand combat decreased, and this too affected the design of the armour.

He said: “It is interesting to see though that as armour developed into the 16th Century, the part of the armour that was lost was the lower leg – the thing that we found increases the cost of movement.”

Thom Richardson, keeper of armours, from the Royal Armouries in Leeds added: “It is interesting to use scientific method to answer these questions, and it confirms what we have always suspected – heavy armour would very much reduce your ability to run around.

“But no-one wears stuff on the battlefield if it isn’t useful.” By Rebecca Morelle, BBC News

Walking stretches your mind and your soul. It is dynamic mind & body process which creates a sense of rhythm. As you listen to your own silent rhythm, the pulse of life, your own heartbeat – you become whole, a complete man – fit in Mind, Body and Soul.

Walking energizes you, awakens you and stills your mind to fully relax. With the change of mind your moods change and you experience a physical and a spiritual upliftment. As you relax, your perception change and you reach from the everyday conscious mind to your highest level of mind – the intuitive mind. Your subconscious cuts through the mental clutter, releasing latent vitality and creativity, transcending traditional linear thinking and helping you find a creative solution.

There are many ways you could possibly benefit yourselves from i.e. an exercise as simple as morning walk. In today’s irritatingly fast world, you deprive your self of the much needed oxygen that is anyways getting depleted with the time. The earliest hours in the morning would probably give you fresh oxygen and quality time to spend with the greenery and beauty around you that perhaps only writers and poets around you seem to notice.

The oxygen that you get early in the morning also gives you great amount of energy especially to your joints. The movement in your legs releases good cholesterol in your blood, opening up some of the “chakras” or channels of energy. By constantly moving your joints, you increase your blood circulation in a way that can only be completed with your daily morning walk.

Awareness walking is a walking meditation. Focusing on the rhythm of the breath and rhythm of each step, we induce a state of a deep relaxation and self awareness. Adding mind-body technique to walking, we can provide greater relaxation and stress management, and can turn a routine walk into a creative & rejuvenating experience.

WHY WALKING

Ordinarily, in today’s hectic world, its quite possible that amidst so much that’s happening around you, makes you feel that an ideal life is but a living dream (which may remain as one) and you tend to lose out on great many things that the future holds for you. A great walk in the woods while admiring nature talks to you in many ways than one. For many of us this may be one of those things for which you either need luck or perhaps the time. And most of us believe that these are never in one’s grasp.

Much of the time our bodies are sluggish and our blood never gets an airing. Oxygen is rarely allowed to surge through our veins making us feel energetic, alive and vital. But exercise can change all that. It rejuvenates and revitalizes the body’s cells, releasing muscular tension and relishing our energy levels. Exercise motivates, energizes and empowers. “The easiest way to change yourself is physically”. ‘Physical change quick’. So kick, start your day with a morning walk. They will tone and energizes you and connect you with your inner rhythms. Walking decreases stress hormones and increases relaxation hormones (beta-endorphins) which elevate your mood and increase your sense of well being.

Walking is natural mood elevator. It helps in promoting feelings of happiness and can ease mild depression. Walking gets you going, revs up your circulation and gives you the energy to get through the day.

The human body is the ultimate exercise machine and walking is the easiest and safest way for most people to re-energizes their bodies and burn away the harmful affects of stress. In other words, to experience health, fitness and deep relaxation, walk.

Walking can be a whole philosophy of life. After all, from the moment we rise in the morning till we climb into bed at night, we are on and off our feet.

MORNING WALK AS EXERCISE

This is perhaps the most overlooked and neglected form of exercise. Because it sounds and look easy, most of us do not bother to walk, but prefer to sign up for expensive aerobic classes and spend a lot of time in a gym.

We recommend walking as exercise since it costs nothing, requires no partner and expensive gadgets, but will burn nearly the same calories as jogging does. It does not burden the body, instead if done in calm and peaceful surroundings like a park or country road, it will let off the tension in your mind and body.

Before you use walking as exercise

Make sure you do not eat an hour before going out for a walk. Digesting takes a lot of energy from the body. If you exercise right away after eating, you are going to overburden yourself. Fruits or juices are okay, since they do not tax the system as much.

Exercise alone will not make you healthy. No amount of walking or jogging will help the body if you do not eat properly or have greater affection with cigarettes and alcohol.

It does not really matter when you do it. Although we acknowledge that an early morning walk is better because the air is significantly fresher, for people who only have the afternoon to do it, it is okay.

Avoid busy roads. You need fresh air with green & clean surroundings. The aim is to relax the mind as well as exercise the body. If you are taking more carbon dioxide than oxygen, you are harming your body. So, find a nice, peaceful and green place.

How to do it

Actually, the human body is designed to walk, no one should be taught how to do it. However, for walking as exercise to give more impact, this is our recommendation

Get at least 30 minutes walk everyday. Keep your pace at 3 to 5 miles an hour. Vary your routes so that you are not walking on flat ground. If you cannot maintain brisk pace, this is what you should do. Alternate between a 2 minutes brisk walk with a more comfortable pace for the next 2 minutes. After that 2 minutes “rest”, pick up your pace again. If you can maintain brisk walk, do it for approximately 20 minutes. If you cannot allocate 30 minutes a day, don’t worry. The most important thing is to do it regularly. Walking as exercise will restore your peace of mind, make your blood pressure normal and control your appetite. It is better than any pills invented by mankind.

HOW WALKING AFFECTS YOUR BODY COMPONENTS

Lets learn how walking affects our body components. It affects the five components of fitness:

BODY COMPOSITION :

Walking four times a weak, 45 minutes each time, the average person can lose 18 pounds in a year with no change in diet. Walking can help you trim fat as well as tone your muscles.

CARDIOVASCULAR FITNESS : Walking, at any level or speed, two or three times a weak for at least 20 minutes increases cardiovascular strength. By increasing the strength of your heart and lungs, you increase your ability not only to exercise longer and harder but also to perform everyday task without tiring.

FLEXIBILITY: As with any endurance activity, walking doesn’t significantly increase your flexibility. Every activity uses certain muscles groups more than others. Therefore you don’t stretch the muscles that walking uses extensively. They’ll tighten, straighten and perhaps cause pains or strains. These exercises are vital for remaining free injury.

MUSCULAR ENDURANCE: All walkers develop a moderate amount of endurance, which enables them to exercise longer before becoming exhausted. Race walker have high endurance comparable to that of marathon runners. Walking helps build your ability to do something longer without fatigue.

MUSCULAR STRENGTH: You will gain muscular strength with walking but probably not enough for well rounded fitness. Muscles that get an extra workout in walking include the entire back of the leg, calves, hamstrings, and gluteus. You will use muscles in the back of shoulders when you swing your arms. Walking provides other physical benefits and prevents dangers associated with other types of exercise. Walking is a low-impact exercise, which puts less strain on bones and tissues. By Kunal Jay Verma, Newsvine

Blackburn says there are also societal differences in the way most women and men are exposed to food, which makes dieting harder for women. Women still purchase most of the food in this country, and they also prepare most of the food at home. That means that a woman may be exposed to much more food throughout the day than a man, giving her more opportunities for temptation. These differences in daily habits, combined with differences in metabolism and body type, Blackburn says, means that “the successful woman dieter has to be more together, more balanced, more structured, and more informed than the man.’’

But these differences break down when it comes to keeping weight off over time. “Men have a more difficult time keeping the weight off than the women,’’ Blackburn says. Because most dieters’ weight bounces back up after an initial loss, researchers now strive to follow dieters for at least two years to judge their progress. When they do, the men and women achieve similar success, about a 4 percent drop in body weight.

The good news is that this modest weight loss seems to have a big benefit in preventing diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and other complications. By Courtney Humphries, The Boston Globe

The Washington University researchers worked with colleagues from the American Cancer Society and examined data from the American Cancer Society Prevention Study II (CPS II) to look at whether changes in physical activity influenced either the incidence of colon cancer diagnosis or the risk of death from the disease.

The CPS II study included more than 150,000 men and women. To determine how exercise affected colon cancer, the researchers compared their levels of physical activity between 1982 and 1997, and linked those activity levels both to the number of colon cancer diagnoses between 1998 and 2005, and to the number of colon cancer deaths that occurred between 1998 and 2006. It turned out that those who exercised consistently for at least 10 years had the lowest risk of colon cancer death.

“People who were consistently active over the course of their adulthood had a lower risk of death from colon cancer than those who were sedentary,” says first author Kathleen Y. Wolin, ScD. “People often wonder around the start of a new year whether exercise really will help them stay healthy or whether it’s already too late. It’s never too late to start exercising, but it’s also never too early to start being active. That’s the message we hope people will take away from this study.”

Wolin, assistant professor of surgery in the Division of Public Health Sciences, says the benefits of starting an exercise program include not just preventing colon cancer and death from the disease, but also reduced risk of heart disease, diabetes and other cancers.

She says the greatest benefits seem to accrue in those who have exercised for the largest percentage of their lives. But it isn’t necessary to run marathons or to work out for many hours every day.

“You get enormous ‘bang for the buck,’” she says. “You go for a 30-minute walk every day, and you’re going to reduce your risk of a number of diseases. And in addition, our research has also shown that you feel better, physically and mentally, so you’re able to function better.”

And physical activity even can be beneficial after a cancer diagnosis already has been made.

“There is evidence that being physically active can reduce the risk of recurrence and death following a cancer diagnosis,” Wolin says. “So even those who haven’t been physically active can begin exercising after their diagnosis and see some real benefits as well.” By Jim Dryden, redOrbit

His is an interesting ‘change in profession’ story. Manish Pole, director of Total Yoga, was first an advertising copy writer before he turned into a full-time yoga practitioner and teacher. “My earlier job, being extremely stressful, slowly started taking a toll on my health. To extirpate excess stress, I started practising yoga. Gradually, yoga became an intrinsic part of my life. It is then that I started teaching yoga on a full-time basis,” shares Pole.

Pole trained for over seven years under yoga guru Bharat Thakur. “I indulge myself in one hour of yoga every morning from 5.30 to 6.30 am. It includes several asanas like suryanamaskar, shirsasan and many more, followed by pranayam and meditation,” adds this yoga teacher.

Apart from these basic asanas, Pole also does push-ups. He believes that it is part of a complete yoga module. “Yoga helps one attain a lean and toned body. It keeps all diseases like high blood pressure, diabetes, cholesterol, obesity, gastritis and others under control. It helps one look fit and keeps one healthy from within,” he says, adding, “Fitness is just a side benefit of yoga. The primary aim of yoga is to guide a person towards meditation techniques.”

After one hour of yoga, Pole starts his day with dry fruits – a few almonds, walnuts and dates. “After that, I go for my classes and in between classes, at around 8.30 am, I eat a banana and an apple,” he says.

This is followed by proper breakfast at 10.30 am, after he returns home from class. “I generally prefer having oats with fruits for breakfast. Alternatively, I eat boiled eggs with bread,” he says.

Lunch is usually at 1.30 pm and comprises dal, sabji and four rotis. “In the evening, before going for class I usually drink banana milkshake,” he adds, stressing on his healthy eating habits.

Pole avoids rice and for dinner, he has roti, sabji and paneer, tofu or fish. “Yoga doesn’t believe in diets. Rather, it trains the body to select food according to its requirements. Yoga for me is a complete physical, mental and spiritual workout. One should at least try to practice yoga thrice a week for a healthy living, coupled with proper eating habits to rejuvenate one’s body,” he concludes. By Priyanka Chakrabarti, Indian Express

First Weyand and colleagues filmed male and female volunteers as they walked on a treadmill at speeds ranging from a slow 0.4m/s up to 1.9m/s. Meanwhile, they simultaneously measured the walkers’ oxygen consumption and carbon dioxide production rates to obtain their total metabolic rate. Next the team calculated the amount of energy that each person used for walking by subtracting the basal metabolic rate (energy required to maintain the body’s basic metabolic functions) from the total metabolic rate measured while walking. Finally, the team compared the way each person walked, measuring the walkers’ stride lengths, stride durations and the proportion of each stride they spent in contact with the ground (duty factor) to find out if large and small people walk differently.

Analyzing the walkers’ styles, the team found that all of them moved in exactly the same way regardless of their height. Essentially, if you scaled a 5 year old up to 2m, the giant child would walk in exactly the same way as a 2m tall adult. So large people are not more economical because they walk differently from smaller people.

Next the team calculated the metabolic cost of a stride as each walker moved at their most economical pace and they discovered that walkers use the same amount of energy per stride regardless of their height. So, big people do not become more economical because they walk in a more economical style. Something else must account for their increased economy.

Finally, the four scientists plotted the walkers’ heights against their minimum energy expenditure and they were amazed when they got a straight line with a gradient of almost -1. The walkers’ energy costs were inversely proportional to their heights, with tall people walking more economically than short/smaller people because they have longer strides and have to take fewer steps to cover the same distance. So smaller people tire faster because each step costs the same and they have to take more steps to cover the same distance or travel at the same speed.

Based on this discovery the group derived an equation that can be used to calculate the energetic cost of walking. ‘The equation allows you to use your height, weight and distance walked to determine how many calories you burn,’ says Weyand. The equation could also be built into popular pedometers to provide users with a more realistic idea of how many calories they expend walking throughout the day. Finally, the team is keen to extend the equation to calculate metabolic costs at any speed. ‘This has clinical applications, weight balance applications and the military is interested too because metabolic rates influence the physiological status of soldiers in the field,’ explains Weyand. PhysOrg

Results were presented at the Third AACR Conference on The Science of Cancer Health Disparities, held Sept. 30 to Oct. 3, 2010.

“People often want to know what they can do to reduce their risk of disease, and we have found that just two or more hours of vigorous activity per week can made a difference in one’s risk of developing breast cancer,” said the lead researcher Vanessa Sheppard, Ph.D., a cancer control scientist and assistant professor in the department of oncology at the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center.

In this study, more than two hours of aerobics, running or similar activity over the span of a week counted as vigorous activity.

“We also know from other studies that being physically active can have benefits in other diseases that occur at high rates in African-American women, such as diabetes and hypertension,” Sheppard said. “Four out of five African-American women are either overweight or obese, and disease control is a particularly important issue for them.”

Evidence showing exercise reduces breast cancer risk has been inconsistent, and there are few that look specifically at African-American women, Sheppard said. The issue is important, she added, because breast cancer has some important differences in this community. Whereas more white women are diagnosed with breast cancer, African-American women have a higher risk of developing premenopausal breast cancer than white women do, and comparatively more African-American women develop the most aggressive form of the disease, known as triple-negative breast cancer.

The researchers identified 97 recently diagnosed African-American breast cancer patients in the Washington, D.C., area and matched them with 102 African-American women without breast cancer. Participants filled out a questionnaire about exercise routines; the responses were analyzed and compared.

Women who exercised vigorously for more than two hours a week in the past year had a 64 percent reduced risk of breast cancer compared to women who did not exercise. Women who engaged in moderate exercise, like walking, had a 17 percent reduced risk, compared to women who were sedentary.

After evaluating those who were pre- and postmenopausal, they found that vigorous exercise only significantly benefitted postmenopausal women — they had a 62 percent reduction in risk.

“I was surprised that we did not find a significant effect in premenopausal women, but it may be because we need a larger sample,” Sheppard said.

However, when the researchers examined the effect of total physical activity, which combined walking with vigorous activity of two or more hours per week, they saw significant gains for both premenopausal and postmenopausal women.

“We suggest that our findings, while promising, should be interpreted with caution. This is a pilot study and a larger, more rigorous study is needed to precisely quantify the effect of exercise on development of breast cancer. I think it is fair to conclude that if African American women exercise they can help take charge of their health,” said Sheppard. PhysOrg

Fat woman obese obesity The obesity crisis will not be solved by exercise alone, according to a new study from Aberdeen University. Photograph: Jose Luis Pelaez/Getty Images/Blend Images

The obesity epidemic will not be reversed by urging people to exercise more, because they have too little time to spare, researchers claim.

To make an impact on levels of obesity, severely overweight people would have to exercise for several hours a day, when they could find it easier to lose the weight by eating less, they said.

An obese person with a body mass index of 35 could reach a more healthy weight and BMI of 22 by reducing their calorie intake by one third. “That is equivalent to exercising for around five hours a day. That is not realistic,” said Professor John Speakman of the energetics research group at Aberdeen University.

A study by Speakman’s group found that contrary to popular belief, our lives have not become more sedentary in recent decades. Physical activity has remained the same for at least the past 25 years, while obesity rates have soared.

Since 1985, the typical man in Britain has burned off 1,380 calories a day through exercise, compared with 950 calories for women. The cause of rising obesity is linked to the population eating more high-calorie food than exercising less, Speakman said.

“Promoting exercise is a good idea, but if you want to tackle the obesity epidemic it is not the solution. Weight loss is not a key benefit from exercise,” he said. Foregoing a small sandwich was as effective as a one-hour run, he added.

About a quarter of British adults and a fifth of children are obese and this figure is rising. An estimated 30,000 people die prematurely across the country from obesity-related illnesses each year.

“You cannot exercise your way out of the obesity epidemic. It would take an enormous intervention in physical exercise,” Speakman said.

“It is important for policymakers to realise that if they want to promote weight loss in overweight and obese people, the most effective way is through healthy eating and diets.”

However, the report says exercise protects against heart disease, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis and high blood pressure. By Ian Sample, The Guardian

We all know we’re supposed to exercise, to move our muscles and be strong.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control estimates about three-fourths of older adults are sedentary, despite informative articles insisting activity helps prevent many related ailments, from coronary artery disease to cognitive decline.

Dr. Sheldon Zinberg, founder of the Nifty After Fifty workout centers, insists people are reluctant to put a name to their problem: “We’re talking about sarcopenia, or age-related muscle wasting.”

All of us are familiar with the long words like osteoporosis or menopause, but, for whatever reason, we are not familiar with the major culprit that affects aging: sarcopenia.

“Starting at about age 40, we lose 1 percent of our muscle mass each year. That accelerates to 1.5 percent at age 60, which means we’re half as strong as we should be by age 80,” Zinberg says. “Try it in this context — if you weigh 150 pounds at 40, that’s like doubling your body weight. Imagine carrying 150 pounds on your back!”

Zinberg operates 22 fitness centers in California, Arizona, Las Vegas and Texas. By Jane Glenn Haas, Denver Post

We all know that exercise and a good diet are important for health, protecting against heart disease and diabetes, among other conditions. But what exactly causes the health improvement from working up a sweat or from eating, say, more olive oil than saturated fat? And are some people biologically predisposed to get more benefit than others?

They’re among questions that metabolic profiling, a new field called metabolomics, aims to answer in hopes of one day optimizing those benefits — or finding patterns that may signal risk for disease and new ways to treat it.

”We’re only beginning to catalog the metabolic variability between people,” says Dr. Robert Gerszten of Massachusetts General Hospital, whose team just took a step toward that goal.

The researchers measured biochemical changes in the blood of a variety of people: the healthy middle-aged, some who became short of breath with exertion, and marathon runners.

First, in 70 healthy people put on a treadmill, the team found more than 20 metabolites that change during exercise, naturally produced compounds involved in burning calories and fat and improving blood-sugar control. Some weren’t known until now to be involved with exercise. Some revved up during exercise, like those involved in processing fat. Others involved with cellular stress decreased with exercise.

Those are pretty wonky findings, a first step in a complex field. But they back today’s health advice that even brief bouts of activity are good.

”Ten minutes of exercise has at least an hour of effects on your body,” says Gerszten, who found some of the metabolic changes that began after 10 minutes on the treadmill still were measurable 60 minutes after people cooled down.

Your heart rate rapidly drops back to normal when you quit moving, usually in 10 minutes or so. So finding lingering biochemical changes offers what Gerszten calls ”tantalizing evidence” of how exercise may be building up longer-term benefits.

Back to the blood. Thinner people had greater increases in a metabolite named niacinamide, a nutrient byproduct that’s involved in blood-sugar control, the team from Mass General and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard reported last week in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

Checking a metabolite of fat breakdown, the team found people who were more fit — as measured by oxygen intake during exercise — appeared to be burning more fat than the less fit, or than people with shortness of breath, a possible symptom of heart disease.

The extremely fit — 25 Boston Marathon runners — had ten-fold increases in that metabolite after the race. Still other differences in metabolites allowed the researchers to tell which runners had finished in under four hours and which weren’t as speedy.

”We have a chemical snapshot of what the more fit person looks like. Now we have to see if making someone’s metabolism look like that snapshot, whether or not that’s going to improve their performance,” says Gerszten, whose ultimate goal is better cardiac care.

Don’t expect a pill ever to substitute for a workout — the new work shows how complicated the body’s response to exercise is, says metabolomics researcher Dr. Debbie Muoio of Duke University Medical Center.

But scientists are hunting nutritional compounds that might help tweak metabolic processes in specific ways. For example, Muoio discovered the muscles of diabetic animals lack enough of a metabolite named carnitine, and that feeding them more improved their control of blood sugar. Now, Muoio is beginning a pilot study in 25 older adults with pre-diabetes to see if carnitine supplements might work similarly in people who lack enough.

Next up: With University of Vermont researchers, she’s testing how metabolic changes correlate with health measures in a study of people who alternate between a carefully controlled Mediterranean diet and higher-fat diets.

”The longterm hope is you could use this in making our way toward personalized medicine,” Muoio says. The New York Times